The Edge of Maine

May 15, 2005
Biographer/novelist Wolff, who has spent over 30 years exploring Maine's coast and communities, begins his New England journey in high humor as he tells of Milton's magical land of Norumbega being confused, by 16th-century explorers, with the coast of Maine. Imaginations at the time ran riot and produced tales of incredible treasure, jewels, elephants, penguins, and flamingoes. In Maine? The silliness concludes with an account of a 20th-century German traveler who confused Bangor with San Francisco when he exited his cross-country flight during a fuel stop. Wolff's own acquaintance with coastal Maine begins in his teens and continues, after marriage, with a family misadventure sailing in the waters around Ragged Island. A fascinating pastiche of personal experiences, humorous anecdotes, and rich, historical detail, this workis not a travel guide but a book for armchair travelers, replete with information on Maine's lobster culture, ubiquitous foggy weather, and more. Recommended for regional libraries and those with large travel collections. -Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2005
Novelist and biographer Wolff is ultimately apologetic about this patchy little travelogue, confessing that, really, he covers only part of one edge of a state with at least three. He ignores Maine's borders with New Hampshire and two Canadian provinces, writing about only the middle of Maine's famously rock-bound seaboard, which is what he knows from years of coasting along it. No apology is necessary. Sure, he skips from history to memoir to reportage so abruptly that it nearly causes whiplash. On the other hand, this is all good stuff: the story of Maine's first, failed colony, founded in 1607; Wolff and his young family's frightening night at sea in deep fog; the ways of Maine's best boat restorer and proprietor of its most fabulous boatyard; the legends of the greatest potential environmental disasters averted in Maine since 1970; the seemingly perennial clashes between poor year-round Mainers and wealthy, often officious "rusticators" (e.g., the Cabots, John Travolta) from elsewhere. One wishes only that the book were even more chock-full of interest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)