The Midcoast by Adam White

Published by Hogarth on June 7, 2022

The Midcoast is a crime novel in the sense that crime provides the drama that holds the plot together. It would be more accurate to say that crime is the backdrop for a character-driven novel. The Midcoast follows family members who come to realize that the family’s prosperity has its origin in burglary. The family leader’s transition from lobsterman to criminal seems natural and inevitable, given his single-minded fixation on keeping a promise to give his wife whatever she wants.

Andrew, the novel’s narrator, grew up in Damariscotta, a town on the midcoast of Maine.  When Andrew was 15, Andrew’s father (an orthopedic surgeon), reaching for a cure for Andrew’s lazy approach to life, arranged for Andrew to take a job as a dockhand at the Thatch Lobster Pound. Ed Thatch was slightly older than Andrew. They had little in common, given Andrew’s plan to play lacrosse and get an education while Ed intends to follow his father’s path as a lobsterman. Ed and Andrew are both impressed by a girl from New Hampshire named Steph, who doesn’t seem impressed by either of them. Later in life, when Andrew moves back to Damariscotta, he learns that Steph has married Ed, a marriage Andrew’s negligence might have inadvertently furthered.

Andrew narrates the Thatch family’s story based on equal parts of research and speculation. Ed begins his criminal career by making an impulsive decision to burglarize a small yacht, not realizing that the victim will one day be his friend. He steals an expensive ring that will be transformed into his wife’s engagement ring. Ed then builds a life by casing vacation houses from his lobster boat and burglarizing them when they appear to be empty. He uses the proceeds to buy land and make other investments that turn him into Damariscotta’s wealthiest resident. He later uses his new fleet of souped-up lobster boats to smuggle marijuana from Canada.

Ed and Steph have two kids, EJ and Allie. EJ comes to suspect the true nature of his father’s work before he begins a career in law enforcement — a career that advances the family business. Steph is clueless about Ed’s criminality, or at least she prefers to be. Steph is ambitious. She becomes town manager, pursuing the belief that Damariscotta can become a prosperous tourist destination. The town does not share her ambitions. Its people prefer anonymity to prosperity. They like Damariscotta the way it is, the way it has always been. Steph ignores them and plugs away at her ambitions, too busy to wonder how Ed is earning so much money. When EJ forces her to ask those questions, the questions “followed her everywhere, exhausted her, made her disappointed in everything she saw.”

Allie is the most innocent member of the family and one of the most carefully developed characters. Ed frets about where Allie can get the best education while pursuing her interest in lacrosse — an interest that brings Andrew back into Ed’s life. Ed also befriends a wealthy man whose daughter is a lacrosse player and who supports Allie’s decision to attend Amherst. The reader learns about Allie’s feeling of guilt about Amherst tuition and her sense that she doesn’t belong — which, if “belonging” means being the child of rich parents who themselves went to a college like Amherst, is true.

It might be easy to sympathize with Ed, an uncomplicated man who followed a path that allowed him to keep a promise to his wife without giving it much thought. With the same lack of planning, he will resolve to abandon crime, again because he wants to make Steph happy, but also because he has a dim realization that crime makes communities unsafe for Allie. Ed is steady but he isn’t blessed with the ability to appreciate potential consequences.

Adam White draws detailed pictures of Maine communities that lack charm but resist modernization. He explores the contrast between upper and lower classes in the Northeast without engaging in a political discussion. Characters from all walks of life populate the novel’s background, sometimes interacting because of shared interests (lacrosse, for example), usually minding their own business.

Although crime drives Ed’s success until it doesn’t, The Midcoast is not built on the typical plot of a crime novel. Apart from being Ed’s part-time occupation, crime is only important to the extent that it has an impact on the characters. Crime drives the novel’s violent climax, but the violence is understated. It does not exist to titillate or shock, but to motivate the next unwritten chapter in the lives of the Thatch family.

That act of violence is previewed early in the novel, prompting Andrew’s exploration of the Thatch family. The violence is given a focused explanation by the novel’s end. At that point, Andrew is teaching writing. Andrew tells his students that writers need to find a way to connect readers with their story. The characters in The Midcoast are sufficiently varied that I suspect most readers will connect with one of them. More ambitious readers might identify with Steph; younger readers with Allie. Some people might connect to the relationship between Ed and Steph, two people who seem horribly mismatched but who, by the novel’s end, would not know how to live without each other. Maybe readers will connect with Maine or with crime. I can envision many connections that would make readers appreciate the time they give to The Midcoast.

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