Two books, one island, great reading, enjoy

Vermont is not a place one typically wants to leave in the summer, and there isn’t much that can tempt me to head out of town between June and September, but there is one thing, and that is the ocean. Every year, I try to spend some time at the beach, where I can be very, very happy doing nothing, except reading of course, and eating the occasional meal … and taking a dip every now and then in the cooling sea, the wavier the better.

This year, in mid-July, I headed out on my yearly pilgrimage, bathing suit, beach umbrella and assortment of books in hand, to Nantucket, which (I know, I know) is very crowded during the season but, really, you just can’t beat the beaches. I love it there. And something that made it extra special this year was my discovery that in fact I had not yet read Elin Hilderbrand’s most recent novel, “Swan Song.” I thought I had — assumed I had (as I tend to buy her books the minute they hit stores) — but while browsing with my son at one of the two locally owned bookstores on the island —realized with glee that I had not. And, truly, what could be better than reading one of Elin Hilderbrand’s novels on Nantucket?

And so, as soon as I could, with shark-like appetite I sunk my teeth in and began devouring what turned out to be yet another immensely satisfying read. I don’t think you have to have ever set foot on the island to appreciate Hilderbrand’s books, all but one or two of which take place there, but there is something extra special about reading about her characters living their lives, raising their kids, driving their jeeps, romancing their love interests, frequenting eateries, having affairs with their gardeners, etc. in the very setting that you are enjoying one lovely, sunlit, carefree day after another. The Club Car piano bar, the Boarding House, Kru, Nobadeer Beach, Monomoy, Sconset, the Nantucket Atheneum, the Handlebar coffee shop, Bartlett’s Farm … it’s enough to send one right over the moon.

In this latest novel, we find dedicated, hard-working, long-time police chief Ed Kapenash poised on the brink of retirement after 35 years on the job, only to be sucked into a frothing whirlpool of drama when the uber-wealthy Richardsons’ 22-million-dollar Monomoy summer home goes up in flames. And to add to the crisis, a young female employee, last seen on the stern of the Richardsons’ boat, has gone mysteriously and inexplicably missing. It’s quite a romp.

I highly recommend this book, whether you are a fan of Nantucket or not. Filled with wonderful characters and non-stop goings on that will keep the pages turning fast till the very end. Delightful. Transporting. Light as sea foam, yet rich, warm and fun.

Oh, and did I mention that this is Hilderbrand’s last novel of the series? This is hard news for those of us who love these great summer reads. But, yes, after writing 27 books set in Nantucket, she’s stepping away. “I never want anybody to pick up my book and say, ‘It just wasn’t as good as the last one,’” she recently told People Magazine. “That is not going to happen. I’ve been watching a lot of people’s careers and it’s so important how you dismount.”

Hilderbrand, who grew up in Pennsylvania, first encountered Nantucket in the summer of 1993. She says that the first time she rode in on the ferry, she looked out over the water and saw the island’s two church steeples and the sailboats bobbing in the harbor, and “it was infatuation at first sight.” “I was like, ‘I love it here. I love it here and I’m never leaving.’”

Hilderbrand is not untrained as an author; she’s a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first published piece was in Seventeen Magazine — a short story called “Misdirection” that earned her a whopping 800 dollars back in the day. She moved to Nantucket in 1994 and has lived there ever since. She writes her books longhand by the ocean.

Happily, though, Hilderbrand hasn’t put down her pen for good. A mother of three, she is working on a book series with her daughter, Shelby, based on the boarding school that Shelby attended. Says Hilderbrand, “At some point in her second semester of her first year, I’m like, ‘We are writing a book about this.’” Hilderbrand recently finished a first draft of book number one and has sent it on to Shelby to tinker with the dialogue.

I have never met Ms. Hilderbrand, but I have come close. One of her many books listed, in the Acknowledgements section, a woman named Renee whose home we were renting that year. And this year, I came really close. My son and I had walked up Main Street to Mitchell’s Book Corner (after iced lattes at the Handlebar) and were informed by the bookseller that we had missed the author by five minutes. Five minutes! Arghh! Apparently, she does weekly signings there. Who knew? Drat.

Towards the end of my trip, I made yet another trip to Nantucket Bookworks and picked up a copy of Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1800.”

Philbrick is the author of the popular “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,” which tells the story of the 240-ton whaleship Essex (inspiration for “Moby-Dick”) that set sail from Nantucket in 1819 and was sunk just over a year later by a giant bull sperm whale. It’s quite a tale, and well worth reading.

As is “Away Off Shore,” which begins way back in time, when “a giant glacier stretching across what is now Nantucket Sound bulldozed Saul’s Hills into a rough approximation of their present form,” and stopped, dumping the boulder which is now Altar Rock, one of the highest points on Nantucket, “the best seat in the house when it comes to imagining how the island originally came into being.”

In his first book of history, Philbrick tells the whole story of Nantucket, or as much as one can tell in 254 pages. He tells about how the original human residents first came to the area approximately 8,000 years ago, long before the island was an island; how these native inhabitants were a hunting culture, “pursuing the caribou and other large game that followed in the wake of the glacier.”

Like Hilderbrand, Philbrick is a resident of Nantucket. A freelance sailing journalist, he moved there in 1986, knowing virtually nothing about the place save what he had picked up in “Moby-Dick.” But, being a journalist, he poked around and “with each passing year … delved ever deeper into the island’s history.”

The main aim of this book, he says, “is not to discredit the mythic men of Nantucket’s heyday; instead, it is to bring to life the island’s history by focusing on the individual men and women — in all their flawed and fascinating glory — who helped to make Nantucket the whaling capital of the world.” He adds that though “the story of the island’s subsequent rise as a summer colony is an important one that needs to be told, it is beyond the scope of this work.”

That’s OK. We have Elin Hilderbrand for that.

History can be a little dry and grueling to read, but not this one. For me, the pages of “Away Off Shore” turned just as fast as they did for “Swan Song.” I learned a great deal about this magical place and will never idealize Quakers again. Highly recommend.