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Watching a River Freeze:
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The fictional town of Bogs Harbor on the coast of Maine comes to life with an assortment of characters who appear and reappear in this collection of a novella, short stories, and a very short play. Two non-fiction pieces from the author's files round out the offerings of this engaging book.
Excerpt from The Lupine:
It was late summer in 1961 and Marilyn was on her own. After the Boston
job fell apart she moved back to Bogs Harbor. She rented a small apartment,
arranged for movers to settle her in, and took a waitress jobs at Sampler's
Chowder Bar. With a stunning lack of fanfare, she had in a matter of days
reversed her monumental move to strike out from home. In less than a week
she dispensed with a notion, a dream if you will, she had had all her
life and settled contentedly into a workday routine in the town where
she had been a child. Perhaps it is a coincidence, then, that a week after
she started her job, she met the love of her life. Marilyn was nearly
twenty-three and Horace was twenty-seven. Horace simply walked into the
restaurant for lunch. He was even newer in town than she was, having that
day started his work as the oceanographic center's newest scientist. He
would reminisce later on that lunch, because it was while he pulled out
the chair at the table and before he sat in it that he fell in love.
Excerpt from What Counts in Bogs Harbor:
Earlier that day Lem walked down the dirt road toward Tyler's place
on the way into town. The road was a gravelly path with a grassy hump
tufted down its center. A field that would be ready for haying in another
month or two spread from the road toward distant pines and hardwoods that
bordered the Barrows Cliffs and the Bluff Road and the Sea. Lem did not
walk the shore route any longer - not since the north shore property had
been developed and the new houses started to go up. "Them cliffs wasn't
never meant for houses," Lem would snarl if anyone asked his opinion.