The Northern Reach by W.S. Winslow

 

Wellbridge, Maine, is not what most mean when they think of a coastal town.  This is no hot in the sun, fun-filled, commercial strip where fun and romance is uppermost.  This is a small fishing village in a cold climate, a hardscrabble environment where livings must be clawed from the sea or those few tourists that end up here for a vacation.

As in most small places, there are several families that have been there forever and who will probably only disappear when their families die out, not because they moved elsewhere in search of a better life.  There are the Baines, a fishing family whose future dies with a ship wreck that drowns most of the men in the family.  The Moodys are considered white trash and are hard drinking poor people who aren't about to be told what to do by anything.  The Edgecombs are farming folk although the land isn't exactly thriving.

Over the decades, these families intermarry, fight and join.  They know each others' secrets going back for years and have ancient grudges.  Occasionally one of the young people marry someone from somewhere else and bring in new blood but these newcomers are rarely welcomed.  Their lot is to be at best tolerated as they are considered to be ignorant of the things that are needed to survive in this place.  There are shipwrecks, illnesses, even a murder or two.  

W.S. Winslow is a native Maine resident herself so she knows what she is writing about.  This is her debut novel and the structure makes this novel interesting.  It ties together the stories from the different families into a tapestry of survival in a bleak environment, of people doing whatever it takes to get by.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.