Tag: Maine

Review 2337: The Berry Pickers

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Joe’s Mi’kmaq family travels every year from Nova Scotia to Maine, where his dad is the foreman of the berry pickers and the rest pick berries, too. In 1962, Joe’s little sister Ruthie disappears from where they left her sitting on a rock eating a sandwich near their camp. The police don’t give them much help. The family searches for her for days but does not find her and continues to look for her in subsequent years..

Now an older man dying of cancer, Joe has lived most of his life away from the family, blaming himself for events caused by his anger. He has finally returned home to die, surrounded by his family but not Ruthie.

While Joe looks back over his life, we hear from Norma. As a child, Norma had dreams of another home, another mother, a brother named Joe. She also had an imaginary friend named Ruthie. But her mother told her it was just her imagination—her neurotic, overprotective mother who barely let her go outside. It’s not too hard to guess Norma is Ruthie.

Every other chapter is Norma’s, as she grows up, sometimes receiving clues about her identity but never really going there.

The novel is built around whether Norma will find her family before Joe dies. There’s not much doubt about that, although the ending is touching.

I thought the idea behind this novel was an interesting one, although in Norma’s mother Peters has invented a monstrous creation, as proved by her family keeping her secret to pacify her. I think we’re supposed to feel some sympathy with this grief-stricken woman, but I absolutely didn’t, and even though her husband is a sympathetic character, I couldn’t fathom his actions.

That aside, Peters’ writing is fairly commonplace, with lots of clichés. I found her characters flattish. I was a little disappointed in this one.

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Review 2258: This Other Eden

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This Other Eden is based on a true event, when the State of Maine evicted the entire mixed-race community of Malaga Island, people whose forefathers had lived there since the 18th century, and placed 11 of them in a home for the feeble-minded.

It’s no coincidence that a conference on Eugenics takes place just before the committee of the Governor’s Council of the State of Maine begins considering the fate of the occupants of Apple Island, a fate the occupants have no say in. It’s the turn of the 20th century, but Benjamin Honey arrived on the island in 1793 with his pockets full of apple seeds, bringing his wife Patience.

Now four small families live on the island, the Honeys, the McDermotts, the Proverbs, and the Larks, along with the abandoned Sockalexis children, all guilty only of being dirt poor and mixed race. They live by subsistence fishing and gathering the fruits of the forest. The winters are brutal. In the spring, the schoolteacher/preacher Matthew Diamond settles in his house across the bay and rows over daily to teach the children. The mainlanders consider the islanders inbred and sub-intelligent, but Matthew Diamond knows that Esther Honey, the matriarch, can recite Shakespeare from memory, that he has to teach himself algebra to stay ahead of Emily Sockalexis, that Tabitha Honey has a gift for Latin, and Ethan Honey is a talented artist.

The fate of the islanders is already decided when the Governor’s Council arrives and starts measuring their heads with calipers and asking them idiotic “intelligence” questions. Matthew Diamond decides to try to save Ethan, so he writes a letter to his friend Thomas Hale in Enon, Massachusetts, asking him to sponsor Ethan at an art school. Soon, Ethan leaves the island.

Harding’s writing is sometimes poetic, and he likes to pursue extended metaphors. Sometimes I liked this, and other times I didn’t have the patience for it. However, I found this novel less obscure than the other two of his I have read, touching, and ultimately with a more positive ending than was probably the case with the actual inhabitants of Malaga Island.

I read this book for my Booker Prize project.

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Review 2196: Lucy by the Sea

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Lucy by the Sea is the latest in Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton novels. As usual, it references all the others, including her books that are not about Lucy. It is also a Covid chronicle.

The beginning recaps a bit of her previous novel, Oh, William! Lucy is still grieving the death of her second husband, David, when her first husband, William, calls to tell her the virus is coming and he’s taking her away from New York City. Lucy is oddly oblivious to what’s happening and only packs for a few days. William has to take her laptop himself.

Lucy finds them in a house in Maine all by itself at the end of a point above the sea. Bob Burgess (of The Burgess Boys) has arranged this home for them. William has also talked their daughters, Chrissy and Becka, into leaving Brooklyn for Connecticut.

From this distance, William and Lucy experience all of the dislocating effects of the pandemic—the worry about others, the isolation, the shock of hearing about friends’ deaths, the yearning for contact. Lucy is as always naïve but wise, full of anxiety and affection. She finds she cannot write.

I always love the Lucy books, which have a deepness to them that lies beneath an almost childlike storytelling style, but this one seems even more lovely.

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Review 1878: Edinburgh

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Fee is a 12-year-old mixed race boy (Korean-American) who feels out of place in his home in small-town Maine. Not only does he not look like his peers, but he likes boys. He is deeply in love with Peter, his best friend.

When Fee joins an elite boys’ choir, he thinks he recognizes in the choir director, Big Eric, a person like himself. But he soon realizes that Big Eric is a predator, who systematically abuses the soloists and keeps them from telling by threatening to cut them from the choir.

Fee conflates his homosexuality with Big Eric’s abuse and is so ashamed that he tells no one even when Peter is given a solo part. Eventually, Big Eric approaches the wrong boy, and the truth comes out. But this also has disastrous consequences for his victims, two of whom commit suicide.

Moving forward in life, Fee continues to be haunted by these events during his teen years and early adulthood. He is finally managing a happier adulthood as a swimming teacher in his home town with a loving partner when he meets a young student who reminds him of Peter and is involved in the early events in a way neither of them understand.

I had mixed feelings about this novel, which I won from Adam of Roof Beam Reader. It is beautifully written and incorporates lore from the Korean side of his character’s background. But it also feels removed from its characters, which is probably necessary as it feels at least somewhat autobiographical. There are some times when the lyrical language doesn’t seem to mean anything and is written more for its sound and images. But mostly, I am disappointed in the ending of the book.

Read no further if you want to avoid spoilers. I don’t usually include them, but I felt I had to in order to express my opinion of the book. It seemed to me that his succumbing to the boy, even though it was mutual and the boy was much older than he had been, is still a predatory act because of the teacher-student relationship. Also, I could not believe that he could teach a student without knowing his last name. There are rosters, reports to be filled out. That was just unbelievable.

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Review 1739: Oh William!

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In Oh William! we meet again Elizabeth Strout’s alter ego, Lucy Barton. Lucy’s second husband David has recently died. She considers her own grief in addition to the state of mind of her first husband, William, who begins to experience some shocks in life.

First, William’s third wife, Estelle, leaves him abruptly. Then William begins to find out some family secrets, particularly about his mother, Catherine. Lucy, who has remained on good terms with William, reflects upon her relationships with him, Catherine, and her own family as she tries to help him.

link to Netgalley

As usual, the story, which is told as a series of apparently random recollections and incidents, is written in lovely prose. What stands out for me even more than that in the Lucy Barton books is Lucy’s gentleness and the loving, accepting way she approaches the world and the other characters. Although Strout’s novels are not strongly plot driven, once you start one, you just want to keep reading.

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Review 1526: Olive, Again

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Best of Ten!
Reading Olive Kitteridge years ago was a revelation to me, first about structure—how Strout could create a novel of a bunch of loosely connected stories—and second about her empathy for her characters, ordinary people in a small Maine town. Finally, there was that force of nature, Olive herself.

Olive, Again is no disappointment. This novel is structured much the same as Olive Kitteridge, stories about Olive and stories in which she is a secondary character or is simply mentioned or thought of. Olive herself is an old woman, who nevertheless toward the beginning of the novel embarks on her second marriage. The novel revisits her difficult relationship with her son, who brings his family for a disastrous visit that gives Olive insight into their relationship as well as that between herself and her first husband, Henry.

Olive is still her straightforward, brusque self, but many of the stories are about troubled people who feel better after encounters with her. Because they live in a small town, people who are the focus of one story appear or are mentioned in the others. For example, in “Helped,” Suzanne Larkin, from a disturbed family, has a heartfelt talk with her father’s lawyer, Bernie, whom Olive meets when she is living in an assisted living facility later in life.

Characters from some of Strout’s other books appear here, too, perhaps more characters than I remembered. Certainly, there are Jim and Bob Burgess from The Burgess Boys, a story about Jim and his wife visiting from New York, as well as Isabelle from Amy and Isabelle, whom Olive befriends in assisted living.

This is another warm and empathetic novel about complex but ordinary people. Strout is a master crafter of a tale.

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Day 1290: Literary Wives! The Stars Are Fire

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Cover for The Stars Are FireToday is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs. Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J.
Eva of Paperback Princess
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink

* * *

After a winter that seemed like it would never end, the autumn in Maine of October 1947 is in severe drought. Grace Holland is pregnant and the mother of two small children. She feels that her marriage is in jeopardy. Her husband, Gene, never loving or communicative, has barely spoken to her since his mother died. Soon, though, she has the very existence of her family to worry about as fires threaten their small beach community.

Grace is able to save her children and her neighbor’s family, but Gene, who went out to fight the fire, doesn’t return. Everything she owned is gone, so now Grace must learn to live an entirely different life.

Anita Shreve knows how to tell a story, and this one drew me right in. Her characters are vibrant and believable. A few of her books have brought me to tears. This is not one of them, but it is still an absorbing novel to read.

What does this novel say about wives or the experience of being a wife?

At the beginning of the novel, Grace’s life as a wife is one of loneliness. Her husband barely speaks to her or touches her. We get the feeling he blames her, as does his mother, for getting pregnant so that he had to marry her. Left all day without a car, she can walk to shop, see her mother, or visit her girlfriend, Rosie. In her own house, however, she is treated as someone to keep the house, care for the kids, and occasionally provide sex.

Spoilers ahead . . . . Sorry, they’re unavoidable.

After she learns independence when Gene disappears during the fire, her marriage changes with his return. Now, he begins to behave with the more classic traits of an abusive husband. He speaks to her cruelly, tries to isolate her in their home, and eventually becomes threatening and physically abusive. Since the fire, Grace has had to learn to survive, and she has to figure out how to do that in an abusive marriage.

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Day 1041: Enon

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Cover for EnonEnon is the second novel by Paul Harding and it follows the story of the same family as in his first novel, Tinkers. That novel was about George Crosby and his memories of his epileptic father. Enon is about George’s grandson, Charlie Crosby, and his life in the village of Enon.

At the beginning of Enon, Charlie’s beloved 13-year-old daughter Kate is killed when her bicycle is hit by a car. Soon after, without much attempt to work anything out, Charlie’s wife Susan returns to her parents’ home and he never hears from her again. Charlie begins a downward spiral into grief, anger, and an addiction to pain killers.

In some respects, Enon is a little more accessible than Tinkers. It is characterized by the same beautiful prose, especially in the descriptions of nature. Further, the setting in the old New England village with its sense of history is fully imagined.

Yet, I wasn’t so interested in watching Charlie fall apart, nor did I enjoy his hallucinogenic dreams about Kate, where she turns to obsidian, for example. I’m starting to realize I don’t enjoy reading about dreams in fiction.

I was also nonplussed by Charlie’s relationship to Susan. No wonder their marriage fell apart. Although they seem to be a happy family at the beginning of the novel, Susan is always somewhere folding clothes while Charlie and Kate go off on adventures. I was surprised when she left just a few days after Kate’s death, but it became clear she wasn’t important to her own family.

So, if this subject matter attracts you, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

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Day 1009: The Miracle on Monhegan Island

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Cover for The Miracle on Monhegan IslandI enjoyed Elizabeth Kelly’s The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, so I was pleased to find she had written another novel. I felt a further pleasure in store because of its setting. Ever since I found online a map of the island with links and information about rental cottages, I’ve dreamed of renting a cottage on Monhegan Island.

I didn’t count on the dog, though. This novel is narrated by a Pekingese named Ned, a truly intelligent Pekingese with lots of insight to offer. I could almost buy this approach in The Art of Racing in the Rain, but not quite. Here, I didn’t buy it at all.

Ned is stolen from the back of his car by Spark Monahan, who takes him as a gift for his son Hally, whom he hasn’t seen in four years. Hally has been living on Monhegan Island with Spark’s father Pastor Ragnar and his brother Hugh.

Spark is the family black sheep, but Ragnar has recently also run into trouble. He was in charge of a concert on the island, but his security wasn’t able to handle the number of people who tried to attend it for free. Now he is being sued for proceeds that were never collected from the people who got in without paying. He is the pastor of a church he basically invented and has the ambition to be a cult leader.

Hally is just beginning to find out some of the secrets of his family, and he finds them upsetting. One day when he is off by himself, he returns claiming to have seen and spoken to the Virgin Mary. Pastor Ragnar latches on to this event and starts trying to make the most of it, while Hugh and Spark more or less passively object. At a second event, people attending claim to see odd effects in the sunlight, and soon Hally is receiving national attention.

Spark and Hugh know that Hally’s mother was mentally ill when she died, so they are worried about Hally. But no one actually does anything to stop Ragnar.

Aside from the problems of the narration, Kelly leaves nothing unsaid. The dog is always pointing things out to you in case you missed them. At the same time her focus is all over the place. There are discussions about religion and faith, mental illness, inheritance, celebrity. The characters, the most interesting part of the novel, sometimes get lost in the baggage.

Also, I missed the darker overtones of the previous novel. Although this novel provides plenty of dark overtones, it lands solidly in the feel-good zone by the end, which for me is not necessarily a good thing.

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Day 565: Olive Kitteridge

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Cover for Olive KitteridgeThis collection of linked short stories lucidly illuminates the contradictions that make up the human condition. The link that binds the stories together is Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher in small-town Maine.

Olive is plain-spoken and gruff. Some people are afraid of her, but she can show sudden compassion and insight.

In “The Pharmacy,” Olive’s gentle husband Henry falls in love with his young pharmacy assistant without ever making his feelings known. In “A Little Burst,” Olive steals some of her daughter-in-law’s clothes during the wedding at the house the Kitteridges built for their son. She has overheard Suzanne saying nasty things about her. In “Tulips,” after Henry has a heart attack, Olive reflects upon their pain that their son Christopher moved away to California with his wife, and even after divorcing did not return or invite them to visit.

In other stories, Olive is less important or simply a presence. A timely conversation with her seems to keep a young man named Kevin from attempting suicide in “Incoming Tide.” In another story, the Kitteridges stroll to the restaurant through the bar where Angie plays the piano every night and thinks about the man she loved.

With neighbors and strangers, Olive says exactly the right thing in a difficult moment, and with her loved ones exactly the wrong thing. Many of the stories are sad but ultimately touching. Strout uses an unusual structure to create the sense of a lovely and affecting novel.