Partners Village Store and Kitchen welcomes author Anna Whitcomb

WESTPORT — On Tuesday, Nov. 13, Partners Village Store and Kitchen will welcome local author Anna Whitcomb to celebrate the release of "Riverrock: A New England Family Saga," written by her mother, Anna Danzer.

Join Partners for an engaging evening discussion about this vibrant novel, the writing process, and how this uniquely New England story came to be.

When Dane, a bright, young reporter from Maryland, jumps into a marriage with Andrew “Beck” Beckford, an aspiring doctor with old New England money, right before he joins the army during World War II, doubts set in. After giving up her career to move to Riverrock, his family’s estate in Massachusetts, and becoming entwined in their knotty private affairs, her concerns multiply. What kind of family did she marry into?

There’s Beck’s father, Andrew, a domineering patriarch and president of a Maine paper company who has a strange grip over his docile daughter, Eleanor, and Maud, the matriarch, who’s a master manipulator forever plotting against her husband. Randall, Beck’s older brother, is an enigma. And Beck? He’s like a lost child, crumbling after returning from war.

The more skeletons Dane uncovers — those involving deceit, forbidden love, even murder — the more determined she is to untangle herself from the Beckfords’ hold and leave the prison of Riverrock. But with all their wealth, power and vindictiveness toward anyone who crosses them, how will she become free?

This intriguing historical and psychological saga, which spans several decades, explores the complex relationships and interplay between the Beckfords and the outsider they let in.

Danzer, the author, was raised in Hagerstown, Maryland, and graduated from Smith College with a bachelor's degree in English and Wellesley College with a master’s degree in English. While at Smith, she was a copy editor of the literary magazine. She started her career as a local reporter for her hometown newspaper and later became a research analyst for the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities. She continued writing and editing manuscripts and technical manuals for defense contractors, literary magazines, and consulting agencies. She resided in both Cambridge and Carlisle, Massachusetts. She died in 2003.

Whitcomb, the editor and author’s daughter, was raised in Cambridge, attended Green Mountain College and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Vermont. She additionally earned an MPA and CAGS in counseling from Suffolk University. She’s helping to fulfill her mother’s legacy by having Riverrock, a book more than 40 years in the making, finally published.

Meet Whitcomb on Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 6 p.m. Partners Village Store and Kitchen to celebrate the release of "Riverrock: A New England Family Saga," written by her mother, Anna Danzer. Partners Village Store and Kitchen is located at 865 Main Road, Westport. MA, Phone: 508-636-2572