Orono, Maine: Puckerbrush Press
$15.95
A Fictionalized Poet’s Trip Down Memory Lane
Writer Christopher Fahy of Thomaston has fictionalized Rockland as the city of Limerock in his latest novel, Chasing the Sun, but it’s not the first time. Fahy, who writes novels, poetry and short stories, created Limerock in a book of short stories by the same name (Limerock and Other Stories).
This time around, Fahy also fictionalizes a Rockland native, Leo Connellan, the late poet laureate of Connecticut, as Limerock native Harry Callahan, now of Rhode Island, the curmudgeonly recipient of an honorary doctorate from Chamberlain College in the town of Garfield, near Limerock.
Fahy knew Connellan during the last years of his life and participated in the poet’s semi-reluctant return to his native Maine for a couple of readings of his work. When Connellan died in 2001 “he just kept running through my head,” said Fahy.
To get Connellan out of his head and into the pages of the book, Fahy created Callahan and took him on a whirlwind tour of his old haunts and old friends accompanied by the mostly terrified assistant librarian of Chamberlain, Nathan Ross, who offered Callahan the degree.
In his desperation to find a commencement speaker, Ross has chosen to ignore warnings from faculty members in the know about Callahan’s tendency to be difficult. When he discovers how minimal were the warnings compared to the reality of Callahan, it’s too late to turn back.
Worse, Callahan’s trip down memory lane, dredging up the anger that drove him to stay away from the state for many years, is so long, convoluted and injurious to Ross’s health, they are in danger of missing the commencement altogether.
Fahy takes the reader on a rollicking, bittersweet, darkly funny trip through the characters that populate Callahan’s past, including Betty Black — a woman whose trailer smells so bad the odor penetrates the heavy congestion of Ross’s cold. At Black’s the pair encounter her grandsons, Harley and Davidson, and hear Crandall the clammer describe how their friend Billy Preston died trying to swallow a lobster tail whole.
“Well, first he turned red, an’ then he turned blue, an’ then he turned almost black. I tried to gaff the tail with a tuna hook, but it was stuck way down in his sarcophagus. I give him the Himmler maneuver but it was too late, an’ he died.”
From the visits to Chicken Neck Lane and the sleazy bars of Callahan’s youth, glugging maple syrup from the bottle and the gradual unraveling of the skein of Harry’s secrets, Ross learns a Maine he has lived near but never knew existed. Exasperated beyond patience with Callahan, Ross still envies the old crank’s friendships.
Fahy is the author of 14 published books — nine novels, one poetry book, three short story collections and a book of home repair. His novels include works in the horror, suspense and satire genres.
Recent novels are Fever 42 and Breaking Point. His poetry is included with four other poets who have Tenants Harbor connections in a new book titled Summer Lines. This volume was published this summer to mark the tenth anniversary of the annual reading by five poets in Tenants Harbor.
Fahy, a former Tenants Harbor resident, lives in Thomaston with his wife, Davene, who is the author of Charlie Who Couldn’t Say His Name, a children’s book about a boy with a speech impediment.
The book’s black-and-white cover is a photograph by Belfast photographer Neal Parent.