Vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard is a Russo family tradition. “I’m trying to remember the first time we took my daughters to the Vineyard, but I know they’ve been coming every year since they were 10 or 11, maybe even earlier,” said novelist Richard Russo, who in 2002 won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his book Empire Falls.

When Eric Asimov visits the Island for the book festival it will be his first time on the Vineyard in 30 years. His last trip was marked by trying his first farm-fresh egg. He was in college at the time, sleeping on a friend’s floor, and for breakfast one morning they went to the neighbor’s next door to fetch the eggs for breakfast.

Someone once told me that writers are people who have failed at other careers. That’s not always true, but it is for me.

For a parent, a child’s teenage years can be a frustrating time, when adulthood and independence start to rear their twin heads. Most parents, though, have the benefit of knowing the ins and outs of their child, having raised them since birth. But what if you were to skip the younger years entirely and suddenly find yourself a first-time parent to a 15 year old?

It’s every seasonal resident’s worst nightmare. What happens to your summer home when no one is around?

Consider, for example, this passage from A.X. Ahmad’s new novel, The Caretaker.