The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 23 February 2001
by Sarah Orne Jewett
In the 1890s, Jewett penned a gentle view of Downeast coastal life in Maine. This is a short work, made up of vignettes of the older inhabitants a woman writer encounters during a summer stay as the boarder of the town herbalist. Dunnet Landing sounds like a lot of little coastal towns in Maine, to this reader most like Camden. Jewett's descriptions are in soft focus, with beautiful countryside and quirky personalities. The women are the strongest characters here, expressing strength and fortitude as the wives of fishermen and sailors. Almira Todd, the herbalist, was interesting from an historical aspect, as her herb garden was on equal ground with the town doctor's pharmacy. The narrator herself is a strongly independent and modern character, carefully protecting her precious writing time. The men she encounters, though, have a broken aspect about them, each in his own way. There are some tender moments with them. Overall, though, the short book paints an earthy portrait of coastal life at the end of the 19th century. The evocation of the little town bustled up against the elements and the vicissitudes of time is very appealing. This is a time, now mostly gone, when people still walked miles across pastures to see one another, gathered berries and herbs for dinner, and appreciated a good story well told.
The Signet Classic edition of this book also includes four short stories that take place in Dunnet Landing, three of which could easily have fit in to the original title piece. The first is "A Dunnet Shepherdess", which expands and deepens the life of William Blackett, quiet and shy resident of an island in the bay beyond the town (perhaps also modeled on Jewett's home of South Berwick, ME). "The Foreigner" is a tragic story of a young French woman cast ashore alone in a rural Maine leery of strangers. In it, Jewett captures the wandering cadence of storytelling on a stormy New England afternoon. An old woman modestly fills her rural life with the glamour of Queen Victoria in "The Queen's Twin". And in the fourth, the introspective "William's Wedding", our narrator returns to Dunnet Landing early in the following spring to witness William Blackett's long-delayed happy marriage.