Another Sunday

Written by Cynthia Strauff
Review by Steve Donoghue

Cynthia Strauff takes as the setting of her long, atmospheric debut novel, Another Sunday, the rich and fashionable world of wealthy Baltimore at the turn of the 20^th century.

Lovely, headstrong Celeste Wells, sixteen-year-old coquettish fixture on the city’s fashionable North Avenue, has settled her attention on wealthy twenty-two-year-old Willie Strauff, whom she finds “a combination of pure and sensual,” and when she becomes pregnant, they outrage their respective families by eloping.

Much drama and tragedy ensues, and Cynthia Strauff writes it all with such linguistic grace and excellent dramatic pacing (and ample period details that feel very ‘right’) that as each quick, punchy chapter passes, it becomes more and more difficult to believe this is her debut novel.

This is a richly-imagined look at a long-vanished world.