Those who have encountered Cape Cod – or merely dipped into an account of its rich history – know that it is a singular place. Robert Finch writes of its beaches: “No other place I know sears the heart with such a constant juxtaposition of pleasure and pain, of beauty being born and destroyed in the same moment.” And nowhere within its borders is this truth more vivid and dramatic than along the forty miles of Atlantic coast – what Finch has always known as “The Outer Beach.” The essays here represent over fifty years and a cumulative thousand miles of walking along the storied edge of the Cape’s epochal arm.

Throughout these essays, Finch pays tribute to the Outer Beach’s impressive literary legacy, meditates on its often tragic history, and explores the strange, mutable nature of time near the ocean. But lurking behind every experience and observation—both pivotal and quotidian—is the essential question that the beach beckons every one of its pilgrims to confront: how do we accept our brief existence here, caught between overwhelming beauty and merciless indifference?

Robert Finch has lived on Cape Cod for over forty years, currently in Wellfleet, MA. He is the author of seven collections of essays, most recently of his radio scripts for his weekly radio broadcast, “A Cape Cod Notebook” on the Cape and Islands NPR Station, WCAI