Elizabeth Gilbert's Stern Men and Not-So-Stern Women

Categories: Travel , Rediscoveries , Staff Picks , Nonfiction , Fiction

I haven’t read Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest, Eat, Pray, Love:  One Woman’s Search for Everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia, about the voyage of self-discovery she undertook after her marriage fell apart.  (I’m in line behind many of you!) 

But seeing her name in reviews brings back fond memories of her 2000 debut novel, Stern Men, a memorable coming of age story set in the islands off the coast of Maine.

Its heroine is young Ruth Thomas, born and bred on Fort Niles, one of two neighboring islands that survive on the lobster industry.  (The island’s other main industry is suspicion of outsiders, including those from the other island.)  Ruth is the daughter of a lobsterman and an outsider.

While friends try to coax Ruth to look toward a future away from the island, she stubbornly clings to the places and people she has known all her life.  When she falls for a boy from the rival island, things come to a crisis:  can she have him, her old home, and a future on an island where the traditional way of life is dying? 

A whole crop of wonderful, highly individual characters enlivens this sharp little novel. Tough, furious, indominitable Ruth (who spends most of her time being exasperated by the very people she wants to stay close to) is just one of them.  Even the most minor characters are memorable here, and the setting is just as unforgettable. It's hard to believe this was a first novel by a woman who had previously published just one short story collection