The Consequence of Richard Ford

Guest essay by Andrew Sottile

I was driving away from Boothbay Harbor along River Road, a windy, crowned cutoff, toward Damariscotta, another small township off Maine’s coastal Route 1. I’d called the bookstore there, which had the text I was after, a history of Maine’s lobster fishing culture, an acclaimed nonfiction narrative. Maine’s answer to The Perfect Storm, I figured. Or better yet, something like Into the Wild. I was going to be an adventure writer. This is wh...