Having spent a summer on the Maine coast many years ago, Jewett’s sketches in ’The Country of the Pointed Firs,’ told by an unnamed narrator, tell of another summer spent in a small coastal town, although 75 years earlier than mine. What characters these people are; what lovely prose. I was there again. I’ve always heard her writing puts her among the top of American writers. Now, I know why. I was reminded of Elizabeth Gaskell’s ’Cranford’—same small town, same ordinary lives richly described.

posted Sep 26, 2011 at 10:16AM

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