Memory and Desire

From the acclaimed storyteller, a propulsive tale of desire, betrayal, duty, and infidelity—and the explosive consequences of a buried passion

The newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West, discover stranded Cuban refugees during a fishing outing turned tragic, but he is part of the story that goes out on the wire. When Corinne, his lover from many years ago, happens to read it and reaches out, the news she bears will disrupt his carefully orchestrated life and threatens to blow up his marriage. His wife, Maureen, lace-curtain Irish while he was from Appalachia, is a brilliant scholar who is also bipolar and fragile. Luke has never told her about his youthful passion or the infant that Corinne, barely out of her teenage years, gave up at birth when they split and he went to war. Maureen’s illness has meant that she and Luke have foregone having children of their own. In Luke’s mind, she cannot find out about Corinne or the child.

Meanwhile, in Miami, where Luke works as the managing editor at a newspaper struggling to survive in the digital era, his star investigative reporter is slowly piecing together a blockbuster story zeroing in on the corrupting influence of cartel money in south Florida. The evidence she has uncovered links a flashy real estate developer, a legacy of murky land dealings, and the stink of political corruption in Luke’s own refuge, Key West.

Philip Caputo was born in Chicago in 1941 and educated at Purdue and Loyola Universities. After graduating in 1964, he served in the US Marine Corps for three years, including a sixteen‑month tour of duty in Vietnam. In addition to Memory and Desire, he has written seventeen books, among them three memoirs, ten works of fiction, and four of general nonfiction. His first book, A Rumor of War, is considered a classic of war literature. It has been published in fifteen languages and has sold more than 1.5 million copies. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Caputo has written dozens of articles in major magazines, op‑ed pieces, and reviews for publications across the United States, including the New York Times, National Geographic, and the Chicago Tribune. He lives in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Patagonia, Arizona.

"With his journalist’s eye for detail and his novelist’s sensibility for the nuances of human behavior, Philip Caputo has crafted a tour-de-force story of love in the modern world and of mental illness that will resonate with the reader long after its breathtaking finale."
—Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of To the New Owners and Queen of the Court

"Caputo’s fluid yarn unspools at just the right pace, ultimately knitting together the themes of loyalty, betrayal, unbreakable bonds, and the lingering taste of a long-ago passion."—Booklist

Praise for Philip Caputo:
“Caputo’s wisdom runs deep. Few writers have better captured the emotional lives of men.”―New York Times Book Review, front-page review

“Caputo knows how to set a scene and build tension through detail. . . . His prose is tough-minded but not without compassion, and he brings experience from one part of the world to another.”―Seattle Times

“A master investigator of the human psyche in the mold of Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Bellow.”―Philipp Meyer, author of The Son

“A superb storyteller.”—Library Journal

“A master of his craft.”―Booklist 

“An acute observer of human disorder and disarray."―Kirkus Reviews