Massachusetts ~ Island Girls

Nantucket — both the town and the island — is absolutely one of the characters of this novel.  As a matter of fact, the "island girls" in the story didn't provide much drama and the story was wrapped up a little too neatly — everyone lived happily ever after.  Well, not exactly, but it almost seemed that way.  Nantucket, on the other hand, was fascinating.  Enough so, that as some point I used Google maps to see if there really was a Lily Street in that town.  Yep, the house where the action takes place is on a real street.

"A storybook house.  A house with many stories" (p. 10).

When I googled it, I discovered the street is so narrow that it's a one-way street.  That doesn't matter so much when most of the time the characters walked wherever they were going.  Occasionally they rode a bike.  And only two cars could fit in their short driveway.  I "walked" up and down Lily Street and could see the limited parking situation.

Several times, characters chose NOT to wear shoes with heels because of the streets.  While exploring Nantucket online, I ran across a Wikipedia article that had this photo (and the satellite image above).  Notice Main Street's cobblestones.  Click on the picture to enlarge it.  In the novel, there's a bookstore in town.  I didn't search to see if it's real.

"They wandered into Bookworks and spent a long time browsing" (p. 247).

They lived on Lily Street and walked to places like Easy Street. I googled it and discovered that's only a half mile walk.  Puts things in perspective, doesn't it.  When I zoomed in to street level on Easy Street, I found myself looking out over a white picket fence at the boats anchored in the harbor.  A couple was standing there in front of me (I was, apparently, standing out in middle of the narrow one-way street).  Nearby was a dark-green bench where I could sit to enjoy the view.  What fun!

"Randall Real Estate was located in a small brick building on Easy Street, facing the harbor" (p. 258).

On my way back to Lily Street (via Google Map, of course), I took another route and discovered the six-columned, white building of the United Methodist Church.  No, it wasn't mentioned in the book, but I'm a retired United Methodist pastor, so I was happy to see the place.  And I highly recommend using Google maps to see where your novels and memoirs take place.  Want to know how it felt?  Like Sam Beckett "leaping" from one time-place to another time-place in the old Quantum Leap television series.  I first felt that when I realized I had "arrived" behind that couple looking out over the harbor.  I also expected them to turn around and ask me, "Where'd you come from?"

Island Girls ~ by Nancy Thayer, 2013, fiction (Massachusetts), 8/10.
To read more about the novel itself, read my Library Loot post.

Cross-posted on my Bonnie's Books blog.

Massachusetts

Kristina said, "Bonnie, I finished Blackbird House a few days ago and wanted to send you the link to my post for the States Challenge website. I don't think this book has been mentioned for Massachusetts yet."

Blackbird House is an evocative novel that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years. Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House.

Massachusetts

Framed said, "I listed Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick for my Massachusetts book. Probably because I own it, but I've heard good things about it also."

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick tracks the Pilgrims from their perilous 1620 transatlantic crossing to the bloody battles of King Philip's War (1675-76). With compelling detail, he describes the delicate social ecology achieved by the Pilgrims and Native Americans before it was broken by a deadly war of attrition. His carefully modulated story blends acts of settler courage and kindness with those of savagery and cowardice. The Mayflower Compact degenerated into a divisive debate of war and peace. Captain Miles Standish, military advisor for the Pilgrims, argued for a ruthless bellicosity, while Edward Winslow, a deputy governor of Plymouth Colony, sought a negotiated settlement with the Indians. A major nonfiction work. Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of the New York Times bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, which won the National Book Award, and Sea of Glory, winner of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize.

Massachusetts

3M said, "There are some Pulitzers that are set in these states, but I have no idea if the setting is integral to the book: Massachusetts - The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (Pulitzer)."

John P. Marquand (1893-1960) wrote several widely admired and bestselling novels, among them the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Late George Apley (1937). Sweeping us into the inner sanctum of Boston society, into the Beacon Hill town houses and exclusive private clubs where only the city's wealthiest and most powerful congregate, this novel gives us — through the story of one family and its patriarch, the recently deceased George Apley — the portrait of an entire society in transition. Gently satirical and rich with drama, the novel moves from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression as it projects George Apley's world — and subtly reveals a life in which success and accomplishment mask disappointment and regret, a life of extreme and enviable privilege that is nonetheless an imperfect life.