Writer From Away: Michael Koryta on Maine Storytelling

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My latest novel, An Honest Man, is set in Maine and was written in Maine. This might make one think it qualifies as Maine fiction – and I respect your confusion. I’ve lived part-time in Maine for eight years now, and there are two disqualifiers in there. You can’t be a Mainer if you live in the state for “part” of a year (waivers may be considered for natives) and if the word following the number eight is years rather than generations, don’t even think about it. It was in Maine that I became aware of the acronym P.F.A., which stands for “People From Away.” This is one of the great terms for outsiders I’ve ever heard. There is Maine, and there is Away.

The End.

My wife, born and raised in Maine, the fourth generation on both paternal and maternal sides in her small mill town, is a generally subdued woman, and yet I swear you can hear her brain sizzle if someone refers to her as seasonal. No, it doesn’t matter that it’s true now. She’s from Maine. Not From Away. If the phrase “shovel the roof” was ever uttered in your childhood home, and if the summer meant work, not vacation, you carry a different Mainer card. There’s a Mafia sensibility to it, in my opinion – I think of Al Pacino as Lefty, explaining things to Johnny Depp in Donnie Brasco:

“When I introduce you, I’m gonna say, ‘This is a friend of mine.’ That means you’re a connected guy. Now if I said instead, ‘this is a friend of ours,’ that would mean you’re a made guy.”

Replace “made” with “Maine” and I think you’ve about got it. I’m a connected guy. Closest I’ll ever get.

We have a remarkable list of native writers – topped by Stephen King and Elizabeth Strout, geniuses both – and so many others it’s embarrassing to begin the list for fear of the talent you’ll leave out. Morgan Talty and Carolyn Chute and Paul Doiron. The great absence from many lists is Tabitha King, who’s awfully damn good, and knows the world of which she writes. Colin Woodard and Monica Wood. (You know the talent well is deep when you can get to the “wood” part of the alphabet and still have multiple options.) 

But I write on behalf of the W.F.A.’s – Writers From Away – who are drawn to this particular corner of the world. E.B. White is the Godfather of Maine’s W.F.A.’s. Richard Russo has now taken his torch. John Irving may not live here, but he knows the state well, and his depiction of a Maine high school wrestling match in The Imaginary Girlfriend may be among my favorite regional portrayals, if not the most flattering. We have John Connolly and Chris Holm, Lily King and Liz Hand. Sarah Langan conjured a nice chilly mill town in The Keeper. The late, great, Anita Shreve wrote multiple novels set in Maine, including her last, The Stars Are Fire. Tess Gerritsen is a transplant of pride. (Were I given a vote for true Mainer status, she’d get one based on her daily walking regimen alone.) 

It’s a hell of a state to write about, whether you were born here or not, and there’s a reason so many writers are drawn to it. Beauty and brutality share the same waters and ridges; the place is always active, and the idyllic moment may be swiftly replaced with a punishing one. The past weighs heavily on the present, chilled breaths on the neck as you drive by tilting tombstones in forgotten graveyards. In the land of spotty cell signal, you might find yourself – gasp! – alone with your thoughts. Not bad for a writer.

My local library in Camden had a sign up for a time claiming there were more writers per capita in Maine than any other state, and I believe it. When the sun goes down at 3:45 in December, a good book is your best friend other than the woodstove. Why not read one? Hell, why not write one?!

Join us. Be a friend of mine, as Lefty would say.

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