Maine Musings: Books & More

ON THE MAINE COAST

After the humidity and heat of Florida, the Maine coast is a welcome change—even when you have several days of gray skies, continual fog, and temperatures that don’t climb out of the 60’s.   We’re on an island here and that means it’s more susceptible to foggy, misty conditions. Sometimes just going across the bridge into town brings one into sunshine. The other day town was foggy too, but farther inland in Damariscotta we were plunged into warmth, even heat. There it was bright sun, humid and 85 degrees!

Our days here are punctuated by hours of reading, dinners with friends, bingeing on The Americans, and the occasional special activity such as a craft fair, the library’s annual book and bake sale, or the house and garden tour, an always enjoyable peek at how others live. The Chief Penguin and I each have projects. We’re both spending time weeding our online photo collections and deleting both duplicates as well as lesser photos. I also brought with me one of the many handwritten journals I’ve kept over the years and am transcribing it on my laptop for posterity—or at least for our son and granddaughters. It’s a jaunt down memory lane for sure. This one is from 1990 and although that sometimes seems like recent past, it’s actually more than 25 years ago! 

Finally, I’ve been tracking the box of books I mailed from Florida on July 8^th. It’s been to Jacksonville, FL twice, three times to Springfield, MA, and now is on its second stop in Jersey City, New Jersey, all while supposedly on its way to Maine!

Frustrated, I belatedly put in an e-mail query about it and then I talked to an authoritative woman in the local post office. She said the address entered (I’m assuming this was done by the woman at my local substation) was my home address, not Maine! She and another postmistress are trying to get it out of its loop-de-loop travels and delivered here. Fingers crossed! Update—it finally arrived at the local post office after its two week journey and I am delighted to have my lost books.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Crime in the Shetlands

I’ve recently been immersed in an excellent crime series set in the rugged Shetland Islands, appropriately titled, Shetland. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is a widower with a teenage daughter who works with Tosh (Alison McIntosh) and Sandy, two junior detectives. Also starring in this thoughtfully produced series is the stunning scenery. Cliffs and peat and simple shingle and stone buildings against a backdrop of serious sea and gray skies. Most episodes are two-partners and you get the flavor of the culture and a sense of life in this isolated rural environment with the ferry the lifeline to the mainland. I find the character of Perez in particular to be very well drawn. He’s a detective with a mission to solve the latest murder, but he’s got a compassionate soul.

RECENT READING

Mishap in Saudi

Thanks to the extensive mystery section at Bookstore 1 Sarasota, I picked up this first detective novel by Zoe Ferraris published in 2008. Entitled Finding Nouf, it’s set in Jeddah and the nearby desert. Desert guide Nayir ash-Sharqui is asked by the wealthy Shrawi family to help locate their missing teenage daughter, Nouf. He knows the family quite well and is friends with Othman, one of Nouf’s many brothers. What is most fascinating about this mystery is its depiction of this segregated Muslim society where women’s lives are cloistered and separate from the world of men. This is a challenge for Nayir in his investigation which is somewhat overcome as he becomes acquainted with lab technician, Katya Hijazi, an independent career woman, who can provide entrée and insights. Author Zoe Ferraris was briefly married to a Saudi man and lived in Saudi Arabia for a time. This was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and is the first of three mysteries set there.  (~JW Farrington)

The Muse by Jessie Burton

This novel was on a display labeled beach reading at Longfellow Books in Portland. I was aware of Burton’s earlier novel, The Miniaturist, so decided to take a chance on it. Like other historical novels, it links characters from two different time periods, in this case London in 1967 and Spain in 1936. Olive Schloss is a young English woman living in Spain who becomes friendly with Isaac Robles, a painter and a political activist and his sister Teresa, who adopts the Schloss family and works as their housekeeper. Like Isaac, Olive also paints, but is extremely reluctant to share her art.

Odelle Bastien is from Trinidad and has been in London for five years. She gets hired by a prestigious art institute and is mentored by a quixotic older woman named Marjorie Quick. Odelle brings to the attention of the institute a painting thought to be by Isaac Robles and finds herself immersed and enmeshed in a net of secrets and deceptions.

Well researched, and intricately plotted with a myriad of relationships and liaisons, The Muse explores questions of creativity and ambition midst tangled love and desire. Why is Olive so determined not to have her name on her work? Is it simply her reluctance as a woman at that time? What price does she pay for her love for Isaac? Can Teresa be seen as evil? I found this an engrossing book even though I sometimes found it hard to accept the characters’ motivations.  (~JW Farrington)

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)