CATBOAT ROAD published September 6, 2022
Catboat Road
CATBOAT ROAD by KATE ROUNDS
Mrs. Robinson meets Holden Caulfield—if Holden were a smart, sexy teenage lesbian in love with her mother’s best friend. For Candace “Ace” Ragsdale, Mrs. Forest is an irresistible force of nature, luscious, tantalizing—and maybe not completely out of reach.
The backdrop is the Massachusetts seaside town of Horton, cut off from the world. On the surface, boats sway on their moorings, while below bubbles a primal brew of salt and sea life—much like the Ragsdales, a decidedly modern family whose humor and goodwill skim breezily above an ocean of smoldering emotions.
The Ragsdales aren’t moored to social convention—but they’ve learned to surf the wave of the unknown and make the most of chaos. From Ace’s womanizing-yet-worshipful brother to her elusive-yet-loving parents, we watch this well-meaning family weave its way into a rich tapestry of townspeople, often to comic effect.
Into this chaos careers a rebel grandmother who shows up to help the Ragsdales save the town windmill, whose mysterious energy whips up the coastal disturbances of a changing world.
As this spectacle of public conflict and private anguish unfolds, we’re fully on Ace’s side as she navigates the turbulent waters of love, sex, and small-town values.
Spoiler alert: Catboat Road doesn’t end as you might expect. But you’ll race toward the finish line as this sly, seductive narrative moves at breakneck speed.
“Lust, love, family, and small-town politics meet head-on in this splendid comic romp. Catboat Road is a page-turner in which every expectation is delightfully unraveled.”
—Dawn Raffel, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Couney
“Kate Rounds’ laugh-out-loud first novel defies categorization—sex farce meets unconventional household drama and touching love story, all falling into the zeitgeist of America’s deep divide. Step in, strap on, and take the ride of a lifetime with Rounds and the Ragsdales, a 21st-century modern family.”
—Helene Stapinski, author of Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History
“If Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird were funny, and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town were even a little bit gay, and you mixed them up and set them down in a tiny Massachusetts town in the era of climate change and secret Trump supporters, you might have a novel as charming and refreshingly unpredictable as Kate Rounds’ Catboat Road. Its central character and narrator is a teenage girl in the tradition of Lee’s Scout or Carson McCuller’s Frankie Addams. Scathingly observant, she is also a devoted, affectionate member of a family that is both “tightly knit and out of the box,” living in an eccentric New England house filled with heirlooms and reminders of the past. Along the way, we get to spend time with a seductive shop owner, a teenage guy who does the best manicures in town, an activist grandma with an arrest record, and Rounds’ sharp, funny dialogue, which is both witty and real, and her odd, angular characters, who are all the more human and likable for their quirks and sometimes tricky desires.”
—John Weir, author of Your Nostalgia Is Killing Me, What I Did Wrong, and The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket
About KATE
Kate Rounds is the author of the novel CATBOAT ROAD, published by Bywater Books in September 2022.
She’s a veteran journalist and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College.
She lives in Jersey City without a cat.
