Two of our grandchildren called the other afternoon and asked my wife, Gail, and me, if we could come for dinner and a video. When grandchildren call and invite you to do anything, you cancel plans for your dinner at the White House, give away your Red Sox/Yankee tickets, and reschedule your London trip so that you can say "yes."

The video they rented was called Seven Pounds, and starred Will Smith. Its ending contains surprises I'll not relate lest I be a spoiler. But this much is safe to say: the story is about a man who is haunted by events in his past. Seven Pounds is worth seeing!

The day after we saw the video with the grandchildren, I finished a novel by Pulitzer Prize author Richard Russo called That Old Cape Magic. It too was about a man who was haunted by the situation with his parents: one dead, the other alive and living in nursing home.

In a clever use of symbolism, Russo writes of Griffin, the book's central character, as he drives from one end of Cape Cod to the other seeking ...