New England Vacation Reading

When I go on vacation, I like to read fiction from or about the area.  For our trip from Boston to Acadia National Park in Maine, I read:

North of Boston by Elisabeth Elo.  This is a mystery about a woman who is out lobstering with her friend when they're hit by a larger ship.  Her friend dies, and she surely would have if she didn't have the uncanny ability to survive in ungodly cold temps.  Truthfully I found the book a bit convoluted with what felt like over-the-top details, like the main character's mother was a famous perfumer and her step dad was like a Ukranian mobster or something, and her best friend is a beautiful heiress and an alcoholic.  I mean, maybe I don't understand the northeast that well, but I was like, why was this girl out lobstering at night?  Anyway, Elo wrapped it all up with a bow and I had fun reading it, so, who cares?

Run, Ann Patchett.  Run takes place mostly around Cambridge, Mass.  It begins, as her books often do, with a killer first chapter that reads like a beautiful, stand-alone story (that nevertheless perfectly sets the stage for the novel).  One snowy evening, a father and his sons become entangled with a woman and her daughter.  A tender look at family, inheritance (tangible and intangible), race and class, this is Peak Patchett.  I love her.

Vacationland, by John Hodgman.  Did you know Maine license plates read "vacationland"?  That might seem funny to some jackass from Chicago (guess who? Me!) until you see how very beautiful it is there, and apparently in summer quite overrun with weekenders - in late September it was overrun with pensioners.  Hodgman is from Brookline, Mass, but writes at length about Maine and its curmudgeonly  and antisocial denizens.  Although most of the book is Hodgman cracking wise about making cairns while getting high and how he accidentally got famous and kind of rich making Apple commercials, he wrote this book while continually acknowledging his own white male privilege, just honestly and forwardly.  That was pretty damn refreshing to read.  He ends with a hard look at how in a place like Maine, composed mostly of wealthy white people, you can pretty much ignore the existence of racism and its terrible effect on minorities in this country.  I think about that sometimes too, like, I could quit reading news about black people being killed by police and I would probably be a lot happier. Anyway, a substantial chapter by a white male comedian on the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement and how white people need to commit themselves improving our society.  Then he immediately writes how he online trolled a dummy online after making a similar commitment and felt like an ass.  Because life is really complicated.  Unexpectedly woke and thoughtful.