The tiny rural backwater of Dogtown, nestled on Cape Ann and hugging the Massachusetts coast line, is a place that is reputedly dying, but its few remaining inhabitants show an enduring spirit that keeps a small flame of life alight. For here, in this forgotten hamlet, lives a cast of dignified, yet utterly eccentric characters. Black Ruth is one of only two Africans still living in the area; she dresses as a man, speaks to no-one, and continues her craft as the local stonemason, casting love and care over the stones she hews. Mrs Stanley is blousey, blonde and the local madam; a woman of total self-absorption, who cares nothing for her young grandson, coming of age amid the sights and sounds of a wretched rural brothel. Oliver Younger, a man with ambition, overcomes a cruel and miserable childhood to marry the woman of his dreams and create a family infused with love. At the centre of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent woman, generous and wise, but also heartbroken and lonely, whose taboo love for Cornelius, a former slave, burns at the core of her soul. Loosely based on the true story of a community, "The Last Days of Dogtown" is a rich, compassionate and compelling novel which illuminates a small, but vivid, chapter of nineteenth century America.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
In my first novel, The Red Tent, I re-imagined the culture of biblical women as close, sustaining, and strong, but I am not the least bit nostalgic for that world without antibiotics, or birth control, or the printed page. Women were restricted and vulnerable in body, mind, and spirit, a condition that persists wherever women are not permitted to read.
When I was a child, the public library on Osborne Terrace in Newark, New Jersey, was one of the first places I was allowed to walk to all by myself. I went every week, and I can still draw a map of the children's room, up a flight of stairs,where the Louisa May Alcott books were arranged to the left as you entered.
Nonfiction, near the middle of the room, was loaded with biographies. I read several about Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, and Helen Keller, with whom I share a birthday.
But by the time I was 11, the children's library was starting to feel confining,so I snuck downstairs to the adult stacks for a copy of The Good Earth. (I had overheard a grown-up conversation about the book and it sounded interesting.)The librarian at the desk glanced at the title and said I wasn't old enough for the novel and furthermore my card only entitled me to take out children's books.
I defended my choice. I said my parents had given me permission, which was only half a fib since my mother and father had never denied me any book. Eventually,the librarian relented and I walked home, triumphant. I had access to the BIG LIBRARY. My world would never be the same.
