Land of Cockaigne

In Jeffrey Lewis’s novel, the ‘Land of Cockaigne’ is a plot on the coast of Maine, once been a summer resort and now where Walter Rath and Catherine Gray, trying to assuage their grief and make meaningful their deceased son’s life, build what they hope will be a brief, fleeting version of paradise for a group of young men from the Bronx. But the town of Sneeds Harbor is not amused. Well-meaning doubts lead to well-hidden threats. The Raths’ marriage unravels as fatefully as Walter’s faith in democracy. Boys who’ve only ever know the city find themselves in a land that may as well be the moon.