The Prince of Nantucket

Teddy, a California senatorial candidate, may have trouble getting the women's vote. His ex-wife hates him. His daughter won't talk to him. He hates his famous-painter mother, who's dying. And he's having sex out of convenience with his campaign manager. To increase his family values poll numbers, Teddy's people encourage him to create a photo op that shows him caring for his ailing mom. Fear not. Six CDs later, Teddy has undergone a life-changing transformation and managed to pull it all together on the island of Nantucket. Paul Boehmer's strong reading keeps the story from dipping too far into the soapsuds, and his Katharine Hepburn style voicing of the family matriarch sharpens the local ambiance. R.W.S. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

March 19, 2007
Teddy Mathison, the hero of Goldstein's unabashedly cloying second novel (after All That Matters
), is an ambitious California senatorial candidate called home to Nantucket because his Alzheimer-afflicted mother, world-famous artist Kate Longley Mathison, is nearing death. Teddy reluctantly flies back east for one last visit with his estranged mother, and campaign manager Judith Mackey conceives of the reunion as a shot at increasing the divorced Teddy's family values appeal. Accompanied by his moody 13-year-old daughter, Zoe, Teddy arrives in Nantucket prepared for the ultimate confrontation with his formidable mother, but is shocked by her withered condition. Before long, Teddy blows off the campaign in favor of helping his mother paint her last canvas, bonding with a self-mutilating Zoe and romancing Liza Swain, a local waitress/photographer with a tragic past. When Judith shows up on the island to remind him of his campaign responsibilities, Teddy is forced to choose between becoming the senator from California or the "Prince of Nantucket." If you think you know how it ends, you're right. But if you think you won't get at least a little weepy, you're wrong.