“When she thought of jumping the gun, she thought of the gun that killed their son. He removed his arm that had stayed around her until then. She was a little breathless as well. He chose not to look at her, but rather to look down at his hands, when he said, ‘The Land of Cockaigne.’”
*******
In his latest novel, Land of Cockaigne, Jeffrey Lewis approaches the dynamics of locals and those from out of state in the imagined Maine community of Sneed’s Harbor. Within this place comes the vicissitudes of race, class and culture amidst grief, a son’s idyllic dream, and a father’s apprehensive approach to fulfill that dream by remembering a fabled medieval tale of a sensual place of paradise on earth.
Lewis, is a television writer, producer and novelist garnering two Emmy Awards, most notably for Hill Street Blues. His 2019 book, Bealport: A Novel of a Town, was a 2019 Maine Literary Award finalist. Lewis shares his time living in Los Angeles and Castine, Maine.
Walter Rath and Catherine “Charley” Gray are an affluent couple that one day sailed their yawl around the point into Sneed’s Harbor and decided to stay. They have an adult son Stephen, who grew up there, attended the elementary school and made friends. The family became an integral part of the community. Walter is elected a selectman, Charley is “a regular” in most anything that helps the community. Stephen eventually finds his way to college in New York City, then as a social worker in the Bronx with his girlfriend Sharon — an aspiring theatre director — to work with disadvantaged youth.
Steven also has a dream. And that dream is to give these “street kids” a slice of what he grew up with back in Sneed’s Harbor; the dream of peace amidst nature tucked within a place and community that is loving and supportive. That dream’s future falls between the cracks in a moment of tragedy.
“On the news programs, too, was the irony of it all, that the victim of the carjack gone tragically wrong was in the Bronx to keep kids out of jail.”
Devastated by their son’s death, Walter and Charley work through it, in their own way and in their own time. Stephen’s dream swirls like a halo and, after some time, a reluctant Walter and Charley decide to assuage their grief and make meaning of his life by building what they hope will be a version of paradise for a group of young men from the Bronx. They begin by reviving an old historic summer resort on the property.
The Sneed’s Harbor community that was once “loving and supportive” suddenly finds itself faced with change. A change brought on by the conflicting nature of wealth. Rath and Gray have money and, though the community is receptive at first, their investment brings an aggressive tension with the arrival of the first group of teenagers.
An uneasy calm begins to pervade the community. Gossip soon turns to questions that eventually change into outright anger and racial stereotypes reinforced by a controversial comment by then-Governor LePage: “Guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty — these types of guys — they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home.”
The Bronx street kids, too, struggle with a world that seems to push against them no matter if they are on a New York street or in Maine wrapped in blue sky and blue water. How do they react? With the help of Sharon they put on a play for the community. Its title stares directly into the situation: D-Money and Smoothie and Shifty. Using a play in the middle of a novel may seem strange, but for me it worked, adding a comedic response to the story’s permeating tension.
Lewis crafts some beautiful sentences that evoke emotion. We all are changed by place. In moments of solitude, angst, sometimes fury the emotions ring true, touching the reader with eloquence tinged in truth. That truth is that change is seldom welcomed. The greater good initially is hard to see and digest. Eventually the change is either discarded, accepted or changed again.
“Love is an action, not a feeling. Once you go down this path of faith, there is much to be done.”
This is a fictional story that tells a truth, one that remains relevant today, as it did 10 years ago, and may remain true 10 years from now. Land of Cockaigne is both a story we can learn from while putting to use — in our own personal Sneed’s Harbors — its message of purpose, dreams fulfilled, and acceptance of others for the greater good of community. That greater good is what makes us and our world better.
In my “note to self,” after having finished reading this book I wrote on the last page: “We are all flesh and blood … We all require to be loved.”
Land of Cockaigne
By Jeffrey Lewis
Haus Publishing 2021, Hardcover $22.95
