Customer Reviews

The Siege of Salt Cove: A Novel

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When the Massachusetts Department of Public Works decides that the picturesque, wooden footbridge linking the village of Salt Cove to the mainland of Leicester is unsafe and will be summarily torn down, the three hundred full-time residents are outraged. And when they see the proposal for the new bridge, a concrete monstrosity strong enough for fire trucks and wide enough for two-way vehicular traffic, they vote for all-out rebellion. Stalwart, unbending Yankees with family histories rooted in the rocky soil of Salt Cove, they are not about to let outsiders tell them that they will benefit from this concrete assault on their aesthetic sensibilities. The idea of two-way vehicular traffic is even less appealing, as it will bring outsiders into the village. With New England determination and some hard-headedness, they decide to take on the state and wage a mini-war in an attempt to break a state-imposed siege of the village.

Recording the events is Jessica Stoddard, a 73-year-old spinster and life-long resident of Salt Cove. Fiesty and independent, Jessica fears no one and tolerates no nonsense. Directing the rebellion is a quiet man in his early forties named Toby Auberon, a relative newcomer to the village, regarded as a hippie, who has leased the now-automated lighthouse and, until now, has kept his legal background a secret. Jessica, Toby, and an additional thirty (or more) characters narrate their own versions of the events in Salt Cove, each of these beautifully realized voices unique and easily recognizable, and many of them hilarious. Quirky imagery combines with these singlar voices to create especially memorable pictures of people and events.

Told with tongue in cheek and a good deal of mild satire, this is a loving picture of village life by an author who respects his characters and sees them in the context of a wider world. And however implausible the developing love story may seem between Jessica and the much younger Toby, Weller makes us understand and appreciate its sweetness, especially in contrast to the outside events. As the government escalates the siege to include Humvees, National Guard tanks, underwater demolition experts, the FBI, and SWAT teams, Salt Cove counters with its tireless citizens, a crazy militia unit from Missouri, a missile found in a fishing net, and plastique explosives. The inevitable bloodshed is a jarring event, a harsh blow which comes just when the reader is loving the characters and smiling at their actions. Full of New England eccentrics who willingly risk all, the novel realistically depicts governmental insensitivity to locally important landmarks but ultimately leaves the reader smiling. (4.5 stars) Mary Whipple

You would not think a simple story about an old bridge and a big city bent on tearing it down would make for compelling drama. But then, there's nothing predictable about The Siege of Salt Cove. The characters come alive, and the story draws you in, and pretty soon you can't put the book down. It's both a comical and poignant tale. But it's the distinct voices of the characters that really stay with you. You feel you know them, and as you turn the final page, it's awfully hard to see them go.

This is a wonderful fictional study of a lovely real district of Gloucester, MA, where you can visit the wooden bridge and hike around the rocky shoreline and the quaint village. The characters are singular and their viewpoints are represented with a wonderful mix of humor and pathos. Particularly moving is Jessica's internal struggle to supress her longings for a man who is not in her age range but turns out to be quite suitable for her on many levels. Suspense is well maintained throughout and the ending is very satisfying. I just loved it!

This was one of the most delightful and well written novels I have read in a long time. Usually novels written in the format of a different person's perspective for every chapter are disjointed; this novel is magnified by it. Some of the best writing I've discovered in a long time (best to sip this one slowly as every page is special!) along with an incredible plot. Kudos to Weller for nearly a perfect novel.

Also recommended: The Last Convertible - A Man in Full - Boy's Life - Mila 18 - Plum Island - The Charm School - Rookery Blues - Shipping News - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Pillars of the Earth - Ladder of Years - Summer of Night - Salem Falls

The Siege of Salt Cove:
New novel tells an old Alaskan story

by Geo Beach

Sure, Alaska is in the Americas. But, united with other states? That's a matter of opinion. And that's one reason why Anthony Weller's The Siege of Salt Cove is the summer's salient book. As well as the funniest and most poignant, a Far Side farce come true.

When Anthony Weller and I met in high school he was already a good writer. The son of George Weller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter posted to overseas assignments, Anthony consequently grew up largely in correspondence with his father, a childhood mapped out on onionskin, Par Avion tricolors to and fro across oceans.

That will sharpen your eye, and your pen.

After college, Anthony himself began a colorful career as a foreign correspondent, writing for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Playboy, and National Geographic. Then he started writing books - about the Caribbean, where he spent summers; Eastern Europe, where he played jazz; and the Indian subcontinent, where he traversed miles and millennia toe-to-tip on the Grand Trunk Road.

Weller has returned to the United States for the locale of his new novel, and just in time.

America seems like another country now, in need of a well-traveled perspective to accurately report it. It's someplace else. Alaskans have long understood that - "Outside" is anyplace that's not Alaska, without distinction between the US and other foreign countries. And Weller understands - he knows Lower-48ers think their America is someplace else now too.

Salt Cove is a New England village with a problem. The state has decreed the demolition of a 200-year-old wooden bridge, intending to replace it with a concrete monstrosity. The villagers attempt negotiation; the bureaucrats are intransigent. So in brave desperation, Salt Cove secedes from the Commonwealth and the Union.

When The Sals (Outsiders call them Saltines) persist in their opposition to diktat, the government brings in SWAT teams and the National Guard. Big guns are deployed, lives lost, little won.

Sound familiar? The US Navy shelled the villages of Kake and Wrangell in 1869 and destroyed Angoon in 1882. And since statehood, many Alaskans have felt in a perpetual state of siege to the alphanumerics of federal government, from ANCSA's d-2 lands to ANWR's 1002 Area.

But Salt Cove doesn't echo just ancient history. These days, Girdwood talks about seceding from the Municipality of Anchorage. In the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Homer freethinkers ponder whether to secede and form their own Kachemak Country Borough. And statewide, the Alaskan Independence Party was built upon the rough-cut plank of secession from the US. Venitie went to the Supreme Court declaring itself Indian Country, a sovereign nation.

The memory of secession in The States is wrapped in the racism of the war between them. But there was that earlier, brighter history - The Declaration of Secession that will be celebrated again on the Fourth of July.

And The Siege of Salt Cove celebrates independence with a marvelous teapartytime sensibility - half Boston Patriots, half Mad Hatters. Weller unleashes a chorus of 39 narrative voices, so Salt Cove shouts and whispers like a small town meeting. As in life, you have to determine where truth lies.

Weller knows, "from Alaska to Long Island's South Fork to Cherokee Nation, an island in the Rio Grande, and multiple Indian protests on Martha's Vineyard, in Vermont, in Maine... Everyone wants his own country."

Since the passage of the Patriot Act, lots of Americans have decided they just want their own country back. More than 250 towns, including Anchorage, have passed resolutions against the Pat Act, with its erosion of representative government and civil liberties. And so have four states - Yankee Maine and Vermont, plus Hawaii and Alaska.

Despite being bullied, regular folks in small towns are standing up to intrusive big government - and Weller is master here. His dark satire conveys a moving humanity - lives, loves, loss, laughter - exposing truths about domestic enemies as his father did about foreign threats. Today, though, the real story isn't on the front page, it's between the hardcovers of well-wrought fiction.

Whether you're reading on the back deck of a boat or in the backyard deck chair, The Siege of Salt Cove is a manual for modern Alaskans - Americans who have always been more than summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.

Independent journalist Geo Beach writes for Anchorage Daily News, National Public Radio, History TV, and TomPaine.com. [Original column published July 2004]

What a great read - meet all the characters of Salt Cove and have a wonderful time....