How to describe this novel, third in Lewis’s “Meritocracy Trilogy”? One way a book gets characterized is through Library of Congress subject headings; in this case, “fiction” about “Jewish men,” “weddings,” “middle age,” “rich people,” “life change events” and “summer resorts.” Well, yes, the book includes all of that. But more importantly, for our purposes at least, it has a Maine coast setting, somewhere near Bar Harbor, Castine and Stonington, and focuses on the tension between locals and outsiders, year-rounders and summer people. The publisher’s publicity release claims the book depicts “the inexorability of fate against the backdrop of the money-mad ’90s and the fallout from a society’s deepening division.” But if this is a book about the “haves” and the “have-nots,” how does one define that in “Clement’s Cove”? The locals have land, their homesteads now highly-valued real estate. Outsiders have money, and covet the land.
This is no new phenomenon, of course. But Lewis may feel that despite its commonplaceness, people don’t like to talk about it, don’t want to look at it square in the face. The outsiders confront a reality that their seemingly unlimited money has its limits. And locals struggle with their legacy of land given a price tag; how do you weigh family roots against family solvency? Who’s arrogant? Greedy? Justifiably outraged? Lewis shows us how a place where life for its inhabitants, both newcomers and old-timers, should feel peaceful and carefree, but instead becomes fraught with paranoia and rage. I can’t help but think Clement’s Cove, which could be referred to as “Clement’s C.” in a map abbreviation, offers no clemency there.
Adam Bloch is the successful middle-aged Jewish businessman newly married to WASP aristocrat Maisie Maclaren. He spends a fortune building a summer place for them in Clement’s Cove. Bloch’s driving ambition to make this place perfect seems related to the misfortunes Maisie has suffered. Guilt, as well as gilt, defines the realization of this dream.
Like Maine author Stephen King, Lewis does a good job creating some palpable psychological tension. The book actually begins with the ending, but you move through the story uncertain how it will progress to that denouement. My imagination ran wild with possible endings, all of them fairly gruesome in keeping with the book’s dark undertones. It was as if I came to embrace the characters’ anxiety and hypervigilance, their perspective now mine too.
However horrific many endings could have been, Lewis’s finale is tragic and dramatic but less interesting than some possibilities. I was also left a bit confused by then about what the book might actually be about. Maybe I should have read the other two novels before tackling this one. And maybe it doesn’t really matter.
I wonder if Lewis gave us an Adam we could link to that most ancient Adam, the one in the biblical book of Genesis. What they share in common is the hubris to assert their own worldly priorities. In trying to please a woman, they both courted disaster and, as a result, each suffered paradise lost. The lesson might be that only a god can create paradise; no mere mortal, even an “Adam the King,” should aspire to think that humanly possible.
Tina Cohen writes on Vinalhaven.