Backyard Maine: Local Essays (Paperback)
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Description
Ed Beem celebrates everyday life in Maine, from high school sports and aging dogs to politics, religion, aging cars, naps, berry-picking, clam festivals, and much, much more.
Most of these short, savvy essays have appeared in The Forecaster, in Ed's Universal Notebook column (named for the spiral-bound reporter's notebooks that he buys two dozen at a time), or in the Maine Times, where he was a staff writer for a number of years. He started reporting when he was a sophomore at Westbrook High, writing for the Westbrook American, and aside from a stint as a librarian at the Portland Public Library after college, he's been scribbling for a living in Maine for his working life. Opinionated, insightful, humorous, and sometimes controversial, Ed Beem enjoys his role as a local observer, and these essays will resonate with anyone tuned in to day-to-day life in backyard Maine.
About the Author
Edgar Allen Beem is a freelance writer who lives in Yarmouth, Maine. Former art critic for Maine Times, he has written about art and architecture in Maine for twenty-five years. He is a frequent contributor to Down East, Yankee, and Photo District News, and he has written for the Boston Globe Magazine, ArtNews, Design New England, Maine Boats & Harbors, Conde Nast's Traveler, and Teacher. He is the author of Maine Art Now and Maine: The Spirit of America, and he writes a weekly opinion column entitled "The Universal Notebook" for The Forecaster, a Greater Portland weekly newspaper where most of the essays in Backyard Maine originally appeared.
Praise For…
These essays
reflect the thoughtful observations of a writer who has done his best to
deprive the world of some of its loneliness by reminding us what it means to be
human.
— Don J. Snyder, author of the acclaimed memoir Of Time and Memory and novels such as Night Crossing, Winter Dreams, and Fallen Angel
Reading this collection of Edgar Beem's columns is like spending the
afternoon with an old friend. He covers everything from the first winter
snowfall to the aging of a favorite dog to the dilemmas of a parent on
prom night (and a lot in between) with insight, wit, and more than a
little grace. It's fun to read and comes in bite-sized chunks that are
always entertaining, usually funny, and often poignant. Mainers--and all
those who wish they were a Mainer (which covers just about
everyone)--will find plenty to recognize, chew on, and enjoy.
— Angus King, senator and former governor of Maine
We need a Maine edition of the New Yorker, so Edgar Allen Beem can write
the "Talk of the Town" section as "Talk of the Non-Town." This book is
wonderful; it's observant and funny, at the same time it's modest and
expresses real feelings without sentimentality. Beem's daily life is far
from dull. It's many poets' terrain-vivid images--a direct tone that
still communicates how much emotion is off the page. Aren't you tired of
self-absorbed memoirs? Read this instead. Beem is insightful and
humane.
— Ann Beattie, author of Park City: New and Selected Stories, Follies: New Stories, and the novel Chilly Scenes of Winter
