Maine Books

Carolyn Chute is basically an effortless genious. I loved the imagery of the trailers in the woods with their homey curtains. Thank you, Carolyn.

Mrs. Chute has done something eternal. It's as though she has carved the Pieta with a chain saw; a Pieta far more moving, poignant and beautiful than Michelangelo's. Society is only a precarious charade against chaos. Your fine manners and social skills aside; we are these people and always have been.

The characters are all really depressing and it is another one of those styles in which improper grammar and a lack of literacy is used all throughout it. It was the style that goes along the lines of, "It was the store. I stood there. I saw. 'Hey watcha don' thwat ah thing fer?' He sputtered."


I don't recommend it.

This is a highly amusing cacaphony of Maine voices. Crowe Bovery's hands are tatooed with auto grease. He has spent three days with the college kid, Jill Luce. He shows up at the house of his boss. The boss's wife doesn't know Crowe has just lost his wife and children in a fire. Crowe smells like a motor running hot. Lillian Greenlaw is an ex-girl friend of Big Lucien Letourneau, Crowe's boss. Lillian Greenlaw is the second wife of E. Blackstone Babbidge.

Big Lucien has a reputation as a man of gold. At Miracle City Big Lucien lets in trailers. The leaders of the town are concerned the place will turn into a slum. Big Lucien's wife is so pregnant she doesn't attend a tupperware party. An old hippy, former wife of Big Lucien, visits. Hippies have big city accents, great hair, and love the outdoors. There used to be hippies on the property living in tents. Big Lucien's present wife's name is Keezhia. One of his former wives, Maxine, mother of Little Lucien among others, lives in Miracle City, too. Maxine works at the mill.

Patty and Armand Letourneau have a son, Severin. Patty works at a bar called the Cold Spot. People are ordered away from Miracle City. They are in violation of a new code. The back cover describes Carolyn Chute as a literary Diane Arbus. I second the characterization.

"Maxine is alone eating eggs. She has her favorite tape on low, the voice of Waylon Jennings just humming. She swings one cowboy boot in hard happy circles. 'Mmmmmmmmm,' she hums along." This a "manipulation of the English language" that should guarantee Carolyn Chute a position in the forefront of literary achievement? I think not. Her affected unpretentiousness in presenting her downbeat characters in economically wrecked western Maine is excruciatingly boring reading. The self-consciously folksy style brings the Letourneaus and the Babbidge's off as a crew of loutish oafs who, like the characters in "Tobacco Road," sit around in their shacks, crowded with wives, husbands, ex-wives, step-children, half-sisters and -brothers, cousins, uncles, doing almost nothing except occasionally shooting each other's guard dogs and lamenting the depreciation of land value. It's labor trying to plough through a narrative in which nothing happens and most details seem random and aimless.

this book does exactly what it intends to do - accurately describe hikes in the mountains of Maine in a compact manner. The description I needed for the mountain I was climbing was right on, and the book is nice and easy to carry along for reference or for interesting technical reading. If you like Maine and you like climbing, this book is perfect.

This book is necessary if one is going to plan a trip into the mountains of Maine, especially if these plans include Katahdin, or Baxter Peak.

That being said, the one shortcoming which could prove dangerous is the description of Knife Edge. The book mentions how very narrow the ridge is in some places, and the obvious points such as do not attempt in windy or wet conditions. But these are the obvious details one will see posted on the signout board before even entering the trail. However, one point which is not mentioned is the fact that Knife Edge necessitates a series of handholds and footholds across it, especially near the Pamola side, with little to no room for error or else serious injury or death may be the result. I have trekked extensively in Peru and Nepal so did not really have a problem with the ridge (though admittedly it was very difficult), but found myself taking alot of time looking for footholds and handholds much more often than I thought I ever would. The book should describe in painstaking detail this dangerous aspect of probably the most difficult ridge in Maine. Quite honestly, I was surprised it didn't after I got down and reread the part covering Knife Edge. Because of this I am dropping my rating from five stars to three, as this omission could be hazardous to someone's health in the future.

Even with this being said, I would like to do Knife Edge again someday......it was an amazing experience. But the rock climbing aspect of this ridge should be spelled out in the book. This is why most people buy the book in the first place- to get a very good idea of what they will see on the trail.

This book provides accurate technical information about many Maine trails -- distance, difficulty, altitude, location of water, etc. I successfully used the guide to plan several hikes in Baxter State Park. The fold-out maps provided in the pocket-part are worth the price of the book. My complaints are these: (1) the book needs to be updated more frequently, and (2) it really needs a few well-placed photographs of the more challenging trails. For example, although I inferred the Dudley Trail up Mt. Katahdin was steep (based on the altitude and distance information provided), the book does nothing to convey the visceral impact of the view from Pamola Peak down to Chimney Pond Lake. It's dizzying in a way that makes you want to use your entrails for rope. And, that's something you don't want to discover from the summit.

Like other AMC hiking guides in this series (AMC White Mountain Guide, for example), the book includes detailed trail descriptions and top-notch maps. However, be aware that although this guide claims to include "nearly 200 peaks," it does not include every little mountain in Maine (a very big state). Most notably, Acadia National Park is omitted from this book.

Finally, the maps, although excellent, are paper, not tyvek.

This book is an exellent guide to anyone hiking in Maine. It details many trails, from long backpacking trips to short nature walks. Included with the guide are maps that are a valuable resource when hiking in the Maine wilderness. The only downside to the bguide is that it is only published every few years, and trails on private land sometimes change over time. Other than that it is a very detailed, complete guide to hiking in Maine

Linda Hall is a very gifted writer and she writes about very difficult real-life topics in her books. To tell you what topic this book covers would give away the ending, but essentially this is a very good mystery with the discovery of a shocking and sad family secret at the end.

Margaret's Peace is a book that you definitely can't put down. Linda Hall allows the reader to get right into the minds of her characters and know their internal struggles along with the suspense surrounding their lives.

I started reading books by this author as an alternative to secular fiction. This is the fourth I've read and I've decided against reading any more (I'm a little slow). While Hall's writing style is interesting and easy to read, I was disappointed to find incest, murder, premarital sex etc. in Christian literature. There was mention of church and some characters grappled with spiritual issues, but these themes were minor in my opinion. Perhaps I need to leave the mystery genre to find more wholesome topics.
Other Linda Hall books I've read: Sadie's Song, Katheryn's Secret, Island of Refuge

This book was a page turner. I stayed up late several nights, unable to put it down! Suspensful and intrigueing. Great story about the loss of faith and the search for inner peace in the midst of turmoil and hidden family secrets. Linda is vivid in her details of scenery and people. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a great mystery.

Linda Hall is truly a gifted mystery writer. Margaret returns to her family home to escape a failing marriage and emptiness after her daughter's death. However, instead of a haven, she finds that she must come face to face with her sister's mysterious death twenty-five years before. Her estranged family of aunts, uncles, and cousins all seem to be keeping secrets from her, as do the retarded man and his crazy mother who live next door. On top of this, Margaret also comes across a one-hundred-year-old legend that includes a curse on her house and a ghost who walks the beach at night. Before Margaret can find her peace, she must find her answers. Did her sister die accidentally, as she had been lead to believe? Is her house cursed? Who has been watching her and why? Did God desert her when her daughter died? Hall is excellent at writing multilayered mysteries, and Margaret's Peace is no exception. I could not put it down.

Tess Gerritsen is by far one of the best mystery/suspense authors. Presumed Guilty did not have the intense suspense as some of her medical thrillers but it was still enjoyable. It was well written and was an enjoyable mystery. I purchase anything written by Tess Gerristen and have not yet been disappointed.

This book was very suspensful! I read this in about 2 days. I highly recomend this book!!

This was not the best book by Tess Gerritsen I have ever read, but I must confess that I enjoyed it. It was certainly not as graphic or horrific as 'The Surgeeon' or 'The Apprentice', but it kept my interest. This was almost more of a romance novel and could have lost me at any time, but I stayed with it and found it to be a good story. (could be a Lifetime movie)

The thing is, I picked up this book after throughoutfully enjoying Gerritsen's medical thrillers (I figured they'd feature the same gripping story-telling) but what I found was a lukewarm novel, filled with two-dimensional characters and a terribly boring plot. The ending was nice, but it wasn't enough to save this book.

So... If you read Gerritsen's medical thrillers (Bloodstream, Harvest, etc...) don't expect the same kind of plot, characters or narration in here.

Miranda had an affair with a married man. Her was stabbed to death in her bed. The police believe they have found the murderer. Miranda. Someone secretly posts Miranda's bail and now someone is trying to kill her. Enters her ex-lover's brother, he was certain that Miranda was guilty. But when he discovers someone is trying to kill her and there's more to the story than what it seems he starts to believe in her innocence and trys to find the murderer. The reason for 4 stars rather than 5 was the story was too predictible.

THIS BOOK IS A GOOD READ FOR ALL AGES. TAKES YOU THROUGH ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CONFLICTS IN THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLE IN U.S. HISTORY. EASY TO READ.

Though at times difficult to read due to the flowery style of Chamberlain's rhetoric, this book is an exciting insight into the thoughts, feelings and experiences of someone who lived through the Battle of Gettysburg. This is more than an account of the battle, this is a window into the emotions and motives of why these men were willing to risk their lives for an ideal.

This article is a reprint of a 1913 magazine piece written by Joshua L. Chamberlain to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Gettysburg. While it's interesting to read his first hand depiction of the battle, all readers should note the story is approximately 15 pages long. The publishers have tried to beef up the "book" by adding 15 additional pages of photos, but it does not make up for the lack of content. I was very disappointed with the purchase.

Quick read from Joshua Chamberlain. I enjoyed it and it was amazing how much closely the modern movies follow the actual events.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain did history a great favor by recording the events that happened on Little Round Top during the second day of the battle of Gettysburg. Thanks to him we have an eyewitness account of the 20th Maine's valiant defense of the left flank of the Union army. Rich with rhetoric, this account is packed with emotion and feeling.

The narrative is very short, only 29 pages, but there are many pictures and an appendix that make it well worth the money. Many well-known histories have drawn on Chamberlain's account of this part of the battle, and Michael Shaara's novel even quotes some of Chamberlain's lines. This primary source is highly recommended for anyone interested in the civil war, not just the die-hard historian.

For thirty-five years, I have lived with this island dominating the view from my living room windows. The poignant life story of the "Kellams of Placentia Island" is a legend on Swans Island and throughout the neighboring community. These beautiful photographs do justice to the elegant simplicity and loving retreat created by this couple. Thanks to David and to Nicols for respectfully saving this piece of our heritage.

The photographs are terrific, and the narrative does a beautiful job of connecting them. It's a photography book, after all, not just a story with pictures. Anyone who has ever spent any time on a coastal island in Maine will appreciate the sensitivity and beauty of the photographs, and I found the story of the Kellams very meaningful. The story of their life should cause us all to reconsider our priorities.

Naturally, being the author of the text of this book, and a fan of Graham's photography, I give it five stars--but also because the review format insists that I rate it.(Another example of the domination of the machine. Otherwise, I would have left the rating blank.)

To avoid any confusion, it should be noted that the photographs by David Graham were taken before the contents of the house were removed and that the book is, in fact, a catalogue for his current exhibition in Philadelphia.

Graham used my essay on the Kellams, which also appears in my book Against the Machine, as text, arranging his photographs in the sequence I speak of in the essay.

There are only a few copies left.

This is not really a book - just a pamphlet. Perhaps the style is meant to follow the simple life the kellams led. You will not get many facts re. the kellams and in fact it turns out that the house was tipped upside down and presumably put back enough to take these photos.

Having said all this it is still a poignant look into one couple's life on an isolated island. I think i would wait and buy it used.......

I was extremely disappointed in this book. I read a review for it in my local paper and was so intrigued I pre-ordered it at least a month before it became available. I checked my mailbox each day and when it finally arrived I read it and looked at the pictures for maybe 30 minutes. I'm not sure how I missed this, but I was expecting a life story, not a breif narrative with photos. The photos were lovely, but as the narrative, simply left more questions than were answered. What a great book this could have been!

Boyle's career as a journalist is evident in his novels. The Jack McMorrow tales are as gripping as any crime thrillers and Boyle's work on the streets ensures that his books are authentic and gritty. Read one, you'll want to read them all.
-- Mark LaFlamme, author of "The Pink Room."

Written by a journalist about a journalist on a quest to earn his fee to do an appealing article for 'Historic Touring' to entice Americans to explore the Arnold Trail. This is a historical story within a modern crime novel. But I choose to stick mostly to the history side. Jack was 'Johnny on the spot' when a tour bus from Boston is delayed; it seems that one of the passengers had mysteriously disappeared at that rest stop in a small Maine town.

At the time, Jack was researching Benedict Arnold's excursion there in 1775 on his way to Quebec. At the local museum, he was given an old and yellowed pamphlet, 'The Arnold Expedition and Scanesett', which had been published for a 100-yr. commemoration. While waiting for the curator, he sat on an Adironack chair on the museum's back lawn, against a thickett of spent lilacs; it was hot and close, the way Maine can be.

Gerry Boyle's writing sometimes leans toward the poetic: "I sat back and looked at the river, which was still and wide here because it was dammed a few hundred yards downstream. The dam crosses the throat of a deep stone gorge; above, the waters coasted slowly before slipping over the brink and cascading down over the rocks."

When Arnold had come up the river in October, 1775, on his doomed mission to capture Quebec City, there had been no town, no dam, just a tall waterfall. He and his group of 500 men had marched from Boston to secure boats at Pittston, Maine, setting off up the Kennebec in a leaky bateaux. This account came from a journal kept by Captain Samuel Thayer, one of the marchers who'd camped out in this backwoods place.

Like a historian tends to do, this freelance writer imagines how it was back then. The shore would have been lined with yellow and crimson in October, the river filled with fish, and the woods rustling with birds. Arnold and his 500 had hauled their heavy bateaux out of the river, heaved them up the rocks and around the torrent. That done, they'd gamely continued on their way. Most would soon be dead of exposure, starvation, or bayonet.

The route north ran along the Kennebec, but the river took a jog to the southwest and passed the towns which had been Indian settlements in 1775. It was the Indian Natanis who named Arnold "Dark Eagle" and predicted that he would soar to great heights but also fall. When they came ashore, they found The Forks, a place now favored by whitewater rafters and bear hunters. They dragged their boats overland to the west to another river where they traveled northwest, poling, wading, and trudging 50 miles through the unforgiving wilderness all the way to Canada. That river was called the Dead, which was just what many of those farm boys and sailors ended up, without firing a shot.

Now, more than 200 years later, they were forgotten, as if they'd never existed. All those lives lost. The writer contemplated: "All that perseverence and courage. All for nothing, and none of it remembered, except by a handful of tweedy professors, and a few old coots in little backwoods towns like this one." This was a similarity to the present mystery of the missing man off the bus.

Using maps to track Arnold's route to Canada led Jack on a cross-country trek in search of the unknown. He used books about Benedict Arnold and the Revolutionary War as background. Most of the men who followed Arnold up the Kennebec, across to the Dead River, through the frozen, trackless bogs either drown, froze to death, died of starvation, or were shot down in Quebec. Some wasted away on English prison ships delirious with fever.

That's what it came down to, when you stripped away all of the elaborate myths and decoration. They'd gotten lost along the way and ended up around Bigelow. He made the trek all the way to the only walled-in city in North America and found it hadn't changed much since 1775. He found the Cidadel, where General Montgomery, one of Arnold's team members, was killed, and the Ursuline Convent down Rue St. Louis.

At a museum in Augusta, he found a journal kept by Dr. Isaac Senter published as 'On a Secret Expedition Against Quebec' which was printed in 1846. But the hard life took place in October, 1775, when another group who had left Cambridge with 1100 and only 675 reached Canada. They were met by some of Arnold's advance scouts and taken up the St. Lawrence River where Arnold led an attack and was shot. Dr. Senter was the physician who treated him.

In his article, he wrote, "You've accomplished after just a few hours drive, what Benedict couldn't after three months of marching, starving and fighting: pass through the gates of old Quebec."

While working on his article, he kept in mind the missing man. There wasn't anything in 'The Maine Telegram' about anybody missing from Scanesett; nothing in the 'Globe' about a bus company losing a passenger. You have to read a lot of muck until Chapter 30 reveals the cover photo's signigicance of the chained handcuff -- a daring rescue.

This is a good book, although it is not as good as the rest of the books in the series. The characters are interesting and the descriptions of Maine are great (I live an hour or so from Mr. Boyle), and Jack is a fine character, but the pace is a bit slow this time. Also, Jack's wry humor isn't as much in evidence, and I think Roxanne is a lot more trouble than she's worth--dump her, Jack. I'm looking forward to COVER STORY in January.

Gerry Boyle certainly knows the people of small town Maine. His descriptions take us into the heart of many a small Maine town. His characters are my relatives and their neighbors in central Maine ... his towns are the towns I knew as a boy. It's real!

Former New York Times and current free lance Maine reporter, Jack McMorrow is researching a piece on the Benedict Arnold Revolutionary War trail which stretches from New England to Quebec. When he reaches Scanesett, Maine, Jack learns that someone named P. Ray Mantis mysteriously disappeared from a tour bus that stopped in town.

Police chief Dale Nevins writes the missing person off as going away with a barfly. Jack's instincts tells him there is more to the story. As he investigates the Arnold story, Jack also makes inquiries about Mantis, who has ties with local folks. Jack wonders if foul play has occurred or is the police right that the man went off with a lady of the night. If his hunch is correct, Jack knows that to continue his investigation could be very dangerous.

The Jack McMorrow mysteries are some of the best regional sleuth tales on the market today. However, the fifth book, BORDERLINE, though quite interesting, is not quite up to the level of the preceding novels. There are very many good words to say about this including: the insights into what makes Jack tick,the Maine natives and scenery, and the Arnold segments (which will also probably turn off some non-historian buffs because there are many non-mystery pages dedicated to this). In spite of all this the Mantis mystery never quite hooks the reader. Fans of the series and American History will thoroughly enjoy the story. For everyone else it is a doubtful but BORDERLINE call at best whether the who-done-it will be enough to satisfy them.

Harriet Klausner

I first read this book about 3 years ago. I don't read many books by writers about writing, and I don't read many autobiographical books by writers, period. However, I read the first few pages of this book, and I was captivated.

She moved herself into an isolated country house for 50 days.

Grumbach's style is simple, plain, and direct. Her book is a study of one person's solitude; as such, it works well as a personal "coming of age" story. That may strike you as odd, because Grumbach is probably in her 50's or 60's, but it's a personal journey story, a tale of one person's finding herself, of imposing a solitary life upon herself.

It's about solitude, and adjusting yourself from a more frenetic way of life to a simpler way of life, socially.

I generally don't read this sort of thing at all, but I loved this book.

For most of us, social interaction is a daily aspect of life. Solitude is suspect rather than pursued. In this peaceful, exquisitely penned memoir novelist Doris Grumbach recounts her 50 days of absolute aloneness during a Maine winter.

"I learned that there is a softness about being alone in the country, even the frozen, snow-filled country," she writes. "Solidity, concrete, and bricks do not define one's surroundings. The edges of my landscape are blurred, made uneven by the action of wind and bending branches. There is comforting balm in the way the water beyond the white meadow breaks through the ice when the tide comes in and then freezes over in irregular ridges when it goes out."

Grumbach turned off the telephone, did not watch television. She went into town only to collect her mail and attend church, always leaving before the end of the service so as not to be drawn into any conversation. Her only companions were music, books, and herself. As she said, "I was now alone with music, books, an unpopulated cove, and with that frightening reflexive pronoun, myself."

This pensive superbly written reminiscence may have been intended as her nod to mortality, instead it is a paean to life. Don't miss it!

- Gail Cooke

I was disappointed , I couldn't get over the fact that the title of this book is not totally about solitude . The author went into town to buy goods, she spoke to the postman on occasion and ups delivery service,.She had access to a telephone with a tape message machine and access to the internet. I believe she spoke to the neighbor,as well.Internet access-- now. thats a connection!
Her musing were boring, They were very subjective--the authors experience.
I felt forced as the reader to look into her life and her experiences and interpretations. Such a heavy title , not represented well throughout the book.
The fact that she had access to the internet, a phone and T.V. by the way, she would listen to the news and whatever,strips the imagination of desparateness, survival and immediate thoughts and feelings. Perhaps pure reflectiveness without connectiveness would be more poignant.
Nothing to ponder or to learn from this book.

Isn't it every writer's dream to have fifty days of solitude? Seven weeks of blissful nothingness, with no demands on one's time or space? Well, that's the kind of "vacation" Doris Grumbach took during one Maine winter. While she did make some inroads on the novel she was working on, she found herself spending more moments in personal reflection -- about past experiences, about friends and family members, about being alone, and about writing in general. The result is this slim volume of musings. Readers who are writers will get the most out of these pages. Anyone considering spending some time alone will benefit as well. For it is only after we know who we are on our own, that we can understand our connections with others.

This slim, spare book touches on many of the gravest issues of our time while avoiding both smug solemnity and grinning uplift.

Grumbach's voice is considered, flinty even, much like the wintery Maine landscape detailed in the book. As her days of solitude progress she writes of history, piety, AIDS, the experience of aging, the borders between the individual and the community, and the often invisible lives of women. She watches everything and lets that observation live on the page without forcing conclusions onto it.

This is a profoundly religious book, and a profoundly feminist one. It wrestles with sacredness, without the silly cliches of so much writing about "the sacred". Its rectitude and honesty are a rebuke to much of the fuzzy-minded writing out there.

After seeing the stunning B&W portraits so wonderfully printed in this book, I knew I had to buy it regardless of what the text had to say. Even so, when I got it home I had high hopes that the text would tell me something about the people depicted in its pages, like a National Geographic story might. Or perhaps it would say something about the photographer and why he chose these subjects and what he liked about each image. I would have loved a technical treatise on how one takes such great on-location photographs.

Instead, the text, while well written, doesn't have much to do with the photographs at all--and that's a shame.

On the other hand the photographs are truly wonderful and they communicate for themselves. They show how compelling Black and White portraits can be. If you like Black and White portraits, buy this book for the photography. And if you enjoy Russell Banks' musings on the meaning of life, so much the better.

In response to what I feel was an undeserved criticism of this book--also being from Maine and in fact a Patten by birth--I would just like to say that quite to the contrary of viewing these photographs and their accompanying text as sad, dire, or despairing, I view them as striking at the heart of what it means to be human, with all its contradictory emotions. I consider this book a testament to a willingness to pause and let experience speak for itself. It may not be "quaint" but it certainly is profound.

It's hard to be objective regarding The Invisible Stranger by Russell Banks and Arturo Patten having been raised in Patten, Maine.

When I heard about the book I was rather excited. I left Patten in 1993 to attend college at Seton Hall University in NJ and inevitably stayed in NJ in order to pursue a career in the wilds of Manhattan. Since leaving Patten, I have become a sincere sentimental New Englander and have returned to embrace the wonders of the town in which I was reared.

At best I can be frank about what my expectations of the book were and what the book actually was once I read it.

The concept of someone taking photographs of the residents of Patten, Maine is quite quaint. The thought of someone then looking at the photographs and coming up with a story about all the people made me very excited. After all, I would know the true stories of these people! I would then be able to share this book with my friends that have come to hear all about the town of Patten, Maine and stories that once evoked the question, "Was that soap opera Peyton Place based on Patten?" Not far from the truth, this small Northern Maine town is a veritable treasure trove of deals gone bad and families reared from cradle to grave on the small (insert size) patch of rocky New England earth.

It did not escape my notice that the fact that the photographer's last name is that of the town. I believe that it was that fact that brought Arturo Patten to Patten, Maine. I am sure that he could argue the fact that the roughly hewn landscape and the people who appear to be cut of similar roughly hewn cloth presented a great set of subject matter. But in my mind it was no more than a gimmick for his book. Not that I think that this is an extremely bad thing, after all it made the town that I love the subject!

I think that what upsets me the most is the actual written content. Russell Banks just seems to go on and on with his ego stroking psychobabble about the complexity of man. Oh what lurks behind the hardened stare of a rural New Englander! An example of this being in the last paragraph of the book (one of the few where Patten is even addressed as the subject matter) Banks states, "It is possible that on some long, cold, lonely winter night, each of these good citizens of Patten, Maine, could snap, could descend into a slough of depression and never return, could go crazy? Could he or she awake one morning and, looking around the slowly brightening room, remember with sudden, overwhelming horror what happened last night?"

It's sad that the residents of such a lovely town could be painted in such a dire manner. It's sad that the people who were photographed for this book will forever remain nameless because the authors chose not to acknowledge their true identities. But it is truly the cruelest trick of all that their images will have to sit nestled amongst such dire and depressing text for the rest of eternity. The people of the world will never know the truth about these people. About their moments of kindness or about how despair has touched their lives and yet they have gone on. Russell Banks and Arturo Patten where not kind enough to share those moments.

I am thankful that I have this book. I am thankful that I have beautiful photographs of so many of the people that I grew up around, though to set the record straight not all are from Patten, Maine. But I am most thankful to be fortunate enough to have had the pleasure to have grown up surrounded by them all and to have had the opportunity to know that the misguided postulations of a self-serving writer can never encapsulate even to the smallest degree what kind of people they truly are.

I suggest one copy of the new Harvard University Press Variorum Edition of Emily Dickinson and this incredible distillation/meditation on the human. Take both to a room somewhere and don't come out until you're haunted. Both evoke Death with a capital D.

It's hard to be objective regarding The Invisible Stranger by Russell Banks and Arturo Patten having been raised in Patten, Maine.

When I heard about the book I was rather excited. I left Patten in 1993 to attend college at Seton Hall University in NJ and inevitably stayed in NJ in order to pursue a career in the wilds of Manhattan. Since leaving Patten, I have become a sincere sentimental New Englander and have returned to embrace the wonders of the town in which I was reared.

At best I can be frank about what my expectations of the book were and what the book actually was once I read it.

The concept of someone taking photographs of the residents of Patten, Maine is quite quaint. The thought of someone then looking at the photographs and coming up with a story about all the people made me very excited. After all, I would know the true stories of these people! I would then be able to share this book with my friends that have come to hear all about the town of Patten, Maine and stories that once evoked the question, "Was that soap opera Peyton Place based on Patten?" Not far from the truth, this small Northern Maine town is a veritable treasure trove of deals gone bad and families reared from cradle to grave on the small (insert size) patch of rocky New England earth.

It did not escape my notice that the fact that the photographer's last name is that of the town. I believe that it was that fact that brought Arturo Patten to Patten, Maine. I am sure that he could argue the fact that the roughly hewn landscape and the people who appear to be cut of similar roughly hewn cloth presented a great set of subject matter. But in my mind it was no more than a gimmick for his book. Not that I think that this is an extremely bad thing, after all it made the town that I love the subject!

I think that what upsets me the most is the actual written content. Russell Banks just seems to go on and on with his ego stroking psychobabble about the complexity of man. Oh what lurks behind the hardened stare of a rural New Englander! An example of this being in the last paragraph of the book (one of the few where Patten is even addressed as the subject matter) Banks states, "It is possible that on some long, cold, lonely winter night, each of these good citizens of Patten, Maine, could snap, could descend into a slough of depression and never return, could go crazy? Could he or she awake one morning and, looking around the slowly brightening room, remember with sudden, overwhelming horror what happened last night?"

It's sad that the residents of such a lovely town could be painted in such a dire manner. It's sad that the people who were photographed for this book will forever remain nameless because the authors chose not to acknowledge their true identities. But it is truly the cruelest trick of all that their images will have to sit nestled amongst such dire and depressing text for the rest of eternity. The people of the world will never know the truth about these people. About their moments of kindness or about how despair has touched their lives and yet they have gone on. Russell Banks and Arturo Patten where not kind enough to share those moments.

I am thankful that I have this book. I am thankful that I have beautiful photographs of so many of the people that I grew up around, though to set the record straight not all are from Patten, Maine. But I am most thankful to be fortunate enough to have had the pleasure to have grown up surrounded by them all and to have had the opportunity to know that the misguided postulations of a self-serving writer can never encapsulate even to the smallest degree what kind of people they truly are.

Frank Daignault has set out the great spaces for striped bass fishing without the angles that usually go with giving up a spot. This is great encyclopaedic stuff from the master who earned his cloth as a great teacher and father and author of Twenty Years on the Cape! Get that book and read it!

I recently started fishing quite a bit of the cape and found this book to be an excellent resource. There are some parts where directions are somewhat vague, but it basically gets you in the area. I have also fished a little bit of Ct and NJ, and found most of the information accurate and insightful. Cross reference with other resources and you should find fish and parking.

This book is a good basic book for any one who wants to know where the are places to fish from the surf, but some of the directions to get to the places are a little fuzzy.

I found the written information here extremely helpful and informative but I dont think I'm being overly critical when I say the "maps" were simply embarrassing. It's a book about finidng locations to fish and the maps literally look as if they were traced off other maps with a magic marker by a child. Of course you'd use detailed maps of your own getting to a spot you might not know but I only wish the caliber of the maps were of the same caliber as the information in the rest of the book.

Peter G

Duing the day I have caught the most fish ever at thislocation. Mostly blues but some bass. 20-25 fish in an afternoon.FUN

The key to successful surfcasting here is getting the most distance possible out of your cast. I use a 12ft rod, new 20lb test, and a 40 lb mono shock leader (tied correctly) with 4oz. metal during the day; sometimes white painted metal with a white rubber tail help with the bass during the day.

I have seen a distance of 20-30 feet on a cast make the difference between an instant hook-up and casting again.

The cost related to getting to wasque is getting more and more expensive every year. During the Summer months fishermen are evan charged to walk on the property. If you have a four wheel drive, and plan fishing the spot with four or more people, for a couple days or more, opt for the 4-wheel oversand permit, (not cheap and more $$ every year) but worth it...