BookLife Review: The Midcoast: A Novel, by Adam White

Maine, Damariscotta, mystery-crime solving, breaking and entering, drug dealing, lacrosse, lobster fishing, author-narrator

Big crime in a small town on the mid coast of Maine, in a real small town called Damariscotta (@damariscottamaine) makes for another satisfying end-of-summer read. Author Adam White employs an unusual device-he writes himself into the story, as a character, a native of the town returning with his family to live, teach and write. The author-narrator begins an investigation of the underlying crime story as he writes the very novel you are reading. That alone is a little twisty. As the book unfolds, the reader begins to piece together the criminal enterprises timeline and parses through who knew what when. The gritty world of burglary and drug dealing stand in service to greed and social climbing, which the anti-hero sees as a necessary and virtually legitimate Robin Hood-like way to deliver everything his wife seems to want, while she seems to perform mental gymnastics and self-induced amnesia to remain ignorant of the source of her lobsterman husband's ever-expanding wealth.