The Midcoast by Adam White

Published by Hogarth on June 7, 2022

The Midcoast is a crime novel in the sense that crime provides the drama that holds the plot together. It would be more accurate to say that crime is the backdrop for a character-driven novel. The Midcoast follows family members who come to realize that the family’s prosperity has its origin in burglary. The family leader’s transition from lobsterman to criminal seems natural and inevitable, given his single-minded fixation on keeping a promise to give his wife whatever she wants.

Andrew, the novel’s narrator, grew up in Damariscotta, a town on the midcoast of Maine.  When Andrew was 15, Andrew’s father (an orthopedic surgeon), reaching for a cure for Andrew’s lazy approach to life, arranged for Andrew to take a job as a dockhand at the Thatch Lobster Pound. Ed Thatch was slightly older than Andrew. They had little in common, given Andrew’s plan to play lacrosse and get an education while Ed intends to follow his father’s path as a lobsterman. Ed and Andrew are both impressed by a girl from New Hampshire named Steph, who doesn’t seem impressed by either of them. Later in life, when Andrew moves back to Damariscotta, he learns that Steph has married Ed, a marriage Andrew’s negligence might have inadvertently furthered.

Andrew narrates the Thatch family’s story based on equal parts of research and speculation. Ed begins his criminal career by making an impulsive decision to burglarize a small yacht, not realizing that the victim will one day be his friend. He steals an expensive ring that will be transformed into his wife’s engagement ring. Ed then builds a life by casing vacation houses from his lobster boat and burglarizing them when they appear to be empty. He uses the proceeds to buy land and make other investments that turn him into Damariscotta’s wealthiest resident. He later uses his new fleet of souped-up lobster boats to smuggle marijuana from Canada.

Ed and Steph have two kids, EJ and Allie. EJ comes to suspect the true nature of his father’s work before he begins a career in law enforcement — a career that advances the family business. Steph is clueless about Ed’s criminality, or at least she prefers to be. Steph is ambitious. She becomes town manager, pursuing the belief that Damariscotta can become a prosperous tourist destination. The town does not share her ambitions. Its people prefer anonymity to prosperity. They like Damariscotta the way it is, the way it has always been. Steph ignores them and plugs away at her ambitions, too busy to wonder how Ed is earning so much money. When EJ forces her to ask those questions, the questions “followed her everywhere, exhausted her, made her disappointed in everything she saw.”

Allie is the most innocent member of the family and one of the most carefully developed characters. Ed frets about where Allie can get the best education while pursuing her interest in lacrosse — an interest that brings Andrew back into Ed’s life. Ed also befriends a wealthy man whose daughter is a lacrosse player and who supports Allie’s decision to attend Amherst. The reader learns about Allie’s feeling of guilt about Amherst tuition and her sense that she doesn’t belong — which, if “belonging” means being the child of rich parents who themselves went to a college like Amherst, is true.

It might be easy to sympathize with Ed, an uncomplicated man who followed a path that allowed him to keep a promise to his wife without giving it much thought. With the same lack of planning, he will resolve to abandon crime, again because he wants to make Steph happy, but also because he has a dim realization that crime makes communities unsafe for Allie. Ed is steady but he isn’t blessed with the ability to appreciate potential consequences.

Adam White draws detailed pictures of Maine communities that lack charm but resist modernization. He explores the contrast between upper and lower classes in the Northeast without engaging in a political discussion. Characters from all walks of life populate the novel’s background, sometimes interacting because of shared interests (lacrosse, for example), usually minding their own business.

Although crime drives Ed’s success until it doesn’t, The Midcoast is not built on the typical plot of a crime novel. Apart from being Ed’s part-time occupation, crime is only important to the extent that it has an impact on the characters. Crime drives the novel’s violent climax, but the violence is understated. It does not exist to titillate or shock, but to motivate the next unwritten chapter in the lives of the Thatch family.

That act of violence is previewed early in the novel, prompting Andrew’s exploration of the Thatch family. The violence is given a focused explanation by the novel’s end. At that point, Andrew is teaching writing. Andrew tells his students that writers need to find a way to connect readers with their story. The characters in The Midcoast are sufficiently varied that I suspect most readers will connect with one of them. More ambitious readers might identify with Steph; younger readers with Allie. Some people might connect to the relationship between Ed and Steph, two people who seem horribly mismatched but who, by the novel’s end, would not know how to live without each other. Maybe readers will connect with Maine or with crime. I can envision many connections that would make readers appreciate the time they give to The Midcoast.

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The Gatekeeper by James Byrne

Published by Minotaur Books on June 7, 2022

Desmond Aloysius Limerick is my new favorite action hero. While most fictional tough guys take themselves much too seriously, demonstrating their toughness in a transparent effort to mask insecurity about their masculinity, Limerick doesn’t take himself seriously at all. He’s funny, self-effacing, completely secure, and — only when he needs to be — tough.

Limerick’s background is a mystery. He is recognized and respected by highly ranked American military officers, but he isn’t currently in the military. He apparently hails from England, although he spent time in Ireland and Scotland before branching out to the rest of Europe. He speaks Spanish and a version of English that Americans don’t easily understand. (Limerick’s complicated explanation of the phrase “He’ll have a right bull” inspires a cop to say “This is America. Speak English.”) He plays bass in a bar band. Some people call him chef, which might be French for chief, although he claims to have gained the nickname by working in many kitchens.

At this point in his life, when he isn’t playing music, Des is a gatekeeper. He opens doors, guards them, keeps them open, controls who and what passes through, closes them when the time comes. Six months ago, he was opening doors in Algeria for people with guns. Des knows his way around a gun but he doesn’t seem to need one.

When the main story starts, Des is in Los Angeles, playing in a hotel bar. On his way to his room, he flirts with Petra Alexandris, amusing Petra but not her bodyguards. He looks out the window of his room and sees a sniper, then sees thugs entering the hotel. Since Petra has bodyguards, he concludes that the thugs might be coming for her. He wanders down to her floor and nonchalantly but violently saves her from being kidnapped. They spend much of the novel together, sometimes in bed. Des has a good life.

Petra is counsel for her father’s corporation, a massive company that finances and expedites contracts for the world’s militaries. The kidnap attempt ties into a plot that involves white supremacists who are lured to central California with the promise of carving out a 51st state, just for them. The actual scheme is more ambitious and surprisingly clever. To throw a spanner in the works, Des needs to take on the supremacists, defend a nuclear plant, and cause havoc on a not-quite-closed military base. Des takes some beatings in the process, but never loses his smile. Trying to control him by locking him in a cell turns out to be futile because, after all, he’s the Gatekeeper.

The novel gets its charm from Des, one of the wittiest action heroes I’ve encountered. I laughed out loud more than a dozen times at the novel’s sly and surprising humor, often appearing in asides and non sequiturs. The reader has little time to fret about plausibility in an action-filled, fast-moving story. The Gatekeeper is a refreshing change from action novels featuring self-centered tough guys whose personality is based solely on being tough. Des’ personality is based on being kind, smart, funny, disarming, and good with doors. His toughness is a quality he feels no need to brag about. Des is an unconventional protagonist I look forward to meeting again ... and again ... and again.

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The Seaplane on Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser

Published by ‎ Doubleday on June 7, 2022

Mira is attracted to sleaze. In fact, she’s obsessed with sleaze. Her very proper parents send her to Alaska for the summer when she’s 17. They hope Mira’s aunt will teach their wayward daughter the value of hard work. Mira is not a delinquent but she’s a poor student who lacks ambition. Her hidden ambition is to master the concept of sleaze, which seems to Mira to have “something to do with excess.” The job allows her to meet her stepcousin Ed, whose missing tooth inspires her sleazy masturbatory fantasies. She only sees Ed during a four-day period, but that’s enough to trigger fantasies of an erotic life together.

Mira returns to Alaska when she’s 18, having flunked out of high school. She takes a job as a baker at Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge. Only a handful of characters live at the resort. Stu and Maureen own the place. Polly and Erin are recent high school graduates who guide guests on their wilderness adventures. A taciturn chef who grumbles about insufficient supplies rounds out the staff.

Maureen likes to tell guests about the virtues of living in God’s country. Stu, who is having an affair with Erin after starting one with Polly, is less interested in virtuous living. Polly is bummed because she came to Alaska with the expectation that the affair would continue. Maureen is bummed, although she usually tries not to show it, because she knows what Stu is doing. The chef has a problem with anger and alcohol. Mira repeats the phrase “soft sweater” over and over when she’s having a panic attack. Each character disintegrates a bit each day as the long summer moves toward darkness until, at the novel’s end, the pace of the disintegration escalates.

Mira spends her days baking, cleaning, dumping trash into the ocean (an odd choice for an eco-lodge), and serving guests. When she’s not working, she’s usually masturbating to fantasies of Ed, fantasies that she revises while imagining them, improving the story as it leads to her climax. Oddly, Mira is probably the most emotionally healthy of the resort’s staff members. Guests, watching the staff interact, sometimes wonder whether they’ve chosen a poor vacation destination.

The reader learns that Mira is now an adult. She is recounting this story from her past, filling in details from the present — Erin’s marriage, Polly’s adoption of a dog after visiting Thailand — that she seems to have gleaned from Facebook. When details are scarce, she uses her imagination to fill the gaps.

The sleaze theme doesn’t work very well, in part because Mira never quite grasps the meaning of sleaze. She learns that sleaze cannot be hunted because it only finds the wholesome. Maybe that means that only the wholesome recognize sleaze as sleazy. I'm not sure what, if anything, the reader should take from Mira's musings about sleaze, apart from the groundwork they lay for Mira's frantic masturbation.

Despite not quite following Mira’s thoughts about sleaze, I admire Rebecca Rukeyser’s creativity. Later in Mira’s life, an addict will compare morphine to a high school snow day, when a teen can anticipate sleeping late before savoring porn during a leisurely afternoon. That's a clever comparison. The contrast between Mira’s genuine and Maureen’s feigned sunniness is amusing, as are the triggers for Mira’s fantasies (thinking about something that Ed might have touched once or looking up his name in the phone book are sufficiently stimulating to get her off). The novel’s increasing darkness is offset by Mira’s steadiness, her refusal to succumb to the fear of bears or jellyfish or unrequired desire. Readers who appreciate the unexpected will find much to appreciate in The Seaplane on Final Approach.

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Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD on May 24, 2022

Before she changed her name, Laurel Turner was raped at a party hosted by her rapist, who was both a well-known businessman and her wealthy husband’s business partner. Years later, he became a powerful politician. As we have learned from #MeToo, powerful men have a long history of sexually abusing women without consequence.

After dumping her unsupportive husband, Laurel changed her name to Ariel Pryce and bought a bookstore in a small town where she raised her son. She eventually married John Wright, a younger man who earned a good living doing something related to finance.

The story begins in Lisbon. Wright is there on a business trip and has taken Ariel with him, something he never did before. He goes out for coffee in the morning while Ariel is still sleeping and is kidnapped as he leaves the hotel. When she discovers he is missing, Ariel spends a frantic day talking to the police and the American Embassy, where she attracts the attention of the CIA. Ariel receives a ransom demand for more money than she has, forcing her to seek help from the one person she never wanted to see again — a person who is forced to help because Ariel is positioned to ruin his life if he doesn’t.

Nobody is quite sure whether to believe Ariel, as kidnappings in Lisbon are rare and Wright does not seem like an obvious kidnap victim. The CIA doesn’t know what to make of Wright’s sister, who recently traveled to Lisbon from her home in Morocco. The reader will probably be equally puzzled by events that don’t quite add up. That’s part of the fun in a novel that invites the reader to guess the truth about the characters’ motivations.

While the novel’s focus is on Ariel, other notable characters include Lisbon police officers, a CIA agent in Lisbon who keeps an eye on potential threats to national security, a lawyer pal of Ariel, and a newspaper reporter. Ariel is the only character who is presented in full, but characterization of supporting players is adequate for a plot-driven novel.

The story explores a couple of social issues, particularly the use of nondisclosure agreements to conceal evidence of sexual abuse. The tendency of the public to judge others based on evidence-free media posts — and their feeling of entitlement to confront those they judge — is a lesser theme, but one that is certainly timely.

A reader might guess the truth behind Wright’s kidnapping, or at least some of it, but a substantial part of the ending is likely to come as a surprise. Chris Pavone develops the clever plot with skill, keeps the first two-thirds of the story in rapid motion, and conveys Ariel’s sense of anxous urgency as she deals with characters from whom she needs help. Pavone also conveys the consequences of the kidnapping plot on Ariel’s life, creating sympathy and support for Ariel that extends beyond her victimization. The novel loses some energy in its later stages, but Ariel’s ability to take charge of her life makes it easy to cheer for her until the story reaches its satisfying conclusion.

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Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta

Published by Scribner on June 7, 2022

Tracy Flick, the protagonist in Tom Perrotta’s Election, did not grow up to be president because life does not always cooperate with ambition. She is an assistant principal at Green Meadow High School. Thanks to a weekend affair, she has a daughter named Sophie. Tracy is dating an older orthopedic surgeon who is starting to become a bit clingy.

Tracy’s goal is to project the image that she is competent and trustworthy so that she will be elevated to the principal’s job when Jack Weede retires. Tracy worries that she reeks of Eau de Loser, having failed to win the principal’s job at three other schools.

Weede will be retiring soon to travel to with his cancer survivor wife, much to the dismay of Front Desk Diane, the secretary at the front desk who used to shag Weede in his office. School board member Kyle Dorfman tells Tracy that she’s a shoe-in for the job, but Tracy knows that nothing in life is certain.

Tom Perrotta’s novels are driven by amusing characters. Thanks to a one-hit-wonder app, Dorfman, unlike most residents of Green Meadow, has money. That explains his presence on the school board. He easily convinced the board to let him fund a Green Meadow Hall of Fame. The first candidate (other than Dorfman himself) is Vito Falcone, a school bully who was the school’s only notable athlete, having played a couple of years in the NFL. Choosing a jock, Tracy thinks, is “the most obvious and depressing choice in the world,” but she’s not about to make waves. As part of his twelve-step program, Vito is apologizing to all the people he harmed. It’s a long list.

Other nominees for membership include a student who died in Vietnam, a student who prevailed in a sandwich eating contest, and a successful car salesman. The committee rules out the only other noteworthy jock because he got charged with a crime for fighting a white cop who didn’t want a black guy dating his sister.

One of the members of the committee to choose Hall of Fame inductees is a student named Lily Chu. She has a relationship with someone named Clem who uses “they” as an identifying pronoun. Lily needs to keep them from meeting her conservative parents, who think Clem is a girl named Amelia.

Ultimately, Tracy’s story, like Vito’s, is one of “squandered promise” — their best years were their high school years, with so much potential ahead, all unrealized. That would be (and has been) a strong premise for a deeper novel, but Tracy Flick Can't Win isn't a novel that attempts serious depth.

The loose plot that holds the characters together is Tracy’s quest to become a principal. Tracy’s life history is one of being stabbed in the back by people she trusted. Whether that will happen again seems to be the question that drives the plot until it doesn’t. Perrotta splinters off a number of apparent subplots that remain undeveloped or exist for no reason, never becoming subplots at all.

The story and characters are sufficently entertaining to earn my recommendation, although the recommendation comes with some warnings, including the frustration of a splitered plot. More importantly, the novel takes a surprisingly dark turn at the end (surprising for a Perrotta novel, anyway), perhaps as a reminder that high schools these days can be dark places. Given the lightness of the story until that point, the ending is a bit too jarring to be satisfying. Had its antededents been explored in greater depth, the ending might have a success. An epilog attempts to reassure the reader that Tracy Flick Can't Win is more light than dark, but the epilog seems to be tacked on to please readers. At least Perrotta avoided the sin of predictability.

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