COMETH FALL
The past few days have been breezy and cool with some sun. The light is different, the air is clearer and drier. Fall is sneaking up on us. Masses of goldenrod line the roadway and here and there a lone red maple leaf lies in the dirt. I see only tall pines when I look around, but surely a maple tree hides somewhere about.
The coming of fall for me always prompted a return to focused work. I liked the sense of buckling down, tackling new projects, and turning more inward. Autumn in the Northeast encourages this. In a week, I’ll be back in Florida where sunny warm days invite one to linger outside, to defer serious pursuits. Florida’s fall doesn’t ever arrive until November. I miss the pronounced change of seasons.
MAINE AUTHORS
Part 1: Contemporary Writers
One of my regular readers reminded me that novelist Richard Russo lives in Maine in the Boothbay region and encouraged me to mention this in a blog post. Russo won a Pulitzer for Empire Falls, which is probably his best-known work. I’ve not read that one, but have read his first novel, Mohawk, and highly recommend Bridge of Sighs, published in 2007. A 60-year-old man who’s lived all his life in a small-town, travels to Italy, partly to visit a childhood friend who escaped to the wider world. It’s an expansive, totally engaging book as Charles Lacy and his wife embark on an odyssey of adventure and reflection. Much of Russo’s writing is semi-autobiographical in nature.
Stephen King is undoubtedly Maine’s most famous and probably most read author. He lives in Bangor, but spends winters in Sarasota, Florida. Consequently, his book signings and appearances are regularly announced in my local newspaper. I am not a fan of either horror or supernatural novels and admit to never having read him. Author of 53 novels, with his best seller being The Shining from 1977, each new book is greeted with long lines of eager purchasers.
Without a doubt, my favorite contemporary Maine author is another Pulitzer Prize winner, Elizabeth Strout. I have read many of her novels from the first one, Amy and Isabelle about a mother’s fraught relationship with her teenage daughter to Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton to Olive, Again. Strout delineates the complexities of small-town life for those with meager means and limited opportunities. The Olive books are sort of linked short stories with some characters appearing more than once. The second book finds Olive dealing with the exigencies of aging. She is a sometimes crochety and cantankerous woman, but offers occasional doses of compassion. I found her an intriguing companion.
On a different note, Paul Doiron explores backwoods Maine in his crime series about a game warden named Mike Bowditch. A former editor of Down East Magazine, Doiron has now penned twelve novels in the series. A few years ago, I read his first book, The Poacher’s Son, and gained an appreciation for aspects of rural life in Maine that many tourists don’t experience. Doiron lives in Camden.
Another current Maine writer, whose books I have noted on bookstore shelves, is Tess Gerritsen. Researching her for this blog, I discovered she has both an interesting heritage and an unusual path to authordom. Born in San Diego, she’s the daughter of a Chinese immigrant and a Chinese American chef. Prompted by her parents, she pursued a career in medicine and became a general physician. Early on, she liked reading romance novels and so tried her hand at writing and publishing a short story. Initially she wrote romantic thrillers and then medical thrillers and more recently, a police detective and medical examiner series called Rizzoli and Isles. Prolific in output, her books have sold more than 25 million copies! Gerritsen also lives in Camden. What have I been missing?
Who are your favorite Maine authors? What do you prefer reading, fiction or nonfiction? If fiction, which genres?
Note: Nature photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).
