University Press of New England
138 pp. Softbound. $14.95
An Eye for the Details of Life
Phil Crossman is the Dave Barry of the Maine islands — well, at least of the lobstering community of Vinalhaven, where he has lived since childhood (not long enough to be considered from “Here,” as he explains in the title piece). Like Barry, he blends frequently hilarious self-deprecation with a winning skeptical regard for rules and regulations, including those of the Immigra-tion and Naturalization Service (“Ask Not What Your Government Can Do For You”).
The pieces collected in Away Happens first appeared in The Wind, Vinalhaven’s weekly paper; Maine Times; Yankee; and this publication, which runs a Crossman contribution every other month. Strung together, these — ahem — “essays” as the author calls them, offer a rib-tickling year-in-the-life of one of the most populated islands of the Penobscot archipelago.
Crossman and his wife, Elaine, an artist, own and run the Tidewater Motel on Vinalhaven. This humble hostelry overlooking Carver’s Harbor provides a still point in the turning world (not!). Actually, the raccoon-frequented hostelry provides the grist for several entertaining vignettes, among them, “Remote Control” and “Friendly Fire,” which highlight the vagaries and unusual amenities of island lodging.
People who inhabit Maine islands year-round can be a species apart, but they are probably no more unusual than the rest of us. Surely here and there on the mainland there are transfer station operators who dress up mannequins, wedding planners who substitute gulls for doves and motel owners who dream of enticing Victoria’s Secret models to come frolic in their millstream.
“Love, etc.,” the sweetest piece in the collection, is a winsome account of a daughter-father discussion of the birds and the bees. The author’s nine-year-old has just attended the annual pre-puberty, a.k.a. “Pre-Pooh,” class held on Valentine’s Day in the school gym, and she takes the opportunity to explain to her father (“often uninformed and always unenlightened”) some of the finer points of reproduction. It’s a classic example of “from the mouths of babes” as the girl manages to deepen her parents’ awareness of relationships — with fellow islanders and with each other.
Crossman is brilliant at picking up the important details of life, such as an island hairdresser’s fondness for the names of beauty salons (among her favorites is Curl Up and Die; her own place is called Groomingdales.) Some of the selections are laugh-out-loud funny, such as “Old Duffers,” which recounts the antics of four octogenarians playing the nine-hole golf course on neighboring North Haven.
Humor writing can be difficult to sustain, as evidenced by the somewhat off-key and overly wrought “Mainland Security,” the last piece in the book. Yet an occasional miscue should not deter Crossman, whose timing and sense of place and people are finestkind.
Carl Little’s latest book, The Art of Monhegan Island (Down East Books) is reviewed elsewhere in this issue.