Toward the end of her life, Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) made a
surprising disclosure. Instead of the critically lauded The Country
of the Pointed Firs, Jewett declared her “best story” to be A
Marsh Island (1885), a little-known novel. Why? One reason is that
it demonstrates Jewett’s range. Known primarily for her
vignettes, Jewett accomplished in these pages a truly great novel.
Undoubtedly, another reason lies in the novel’s themes of queer
kinship and same-sex domesticity, as enjoyed by the flamboyant
protagonist Dick Dale. Written a few years into Jewett’s
decades-long companionship with Annie Fields, A Marsh Island echoes
Jewett’s determination to split time between her family home in
Maine and Fields’s place on Charles Street in Boston. The novel
follows the adventures of Dale, a Manhattanite landscape painter in
the Great Marsh of northeastern Massachusetts and envisions the
latter region’s saltmarsh as a figure for dynamic selfhood: the
ever-shifting boundaries between land and sea a model for valuing
both individuality and a porous openness to the gifts of others.
Jewett’s works played a major role in popularizing the genre of
American regionalism and have garnered praise, both in her time and
ours, for her skill in rendering the local landscapes and fishing
villages along or near the coasts of New England. Just as Jewett
brought attention to the unique beauty and value of the Great marsh
region, editor Don James McLaughlin reveals a convergence of
regionalism and sexuality in Jewett’s work in his introduction. A
Marsh Island reminds us that queer kinship has a long tradition of
being extended to incorporate queer ecological belonging, and that
the meaning of “companionship” itself is enriched when we
acknowledge its indebtedness to environment.
General
| Imprint: |
University of PennsylvaniaPress
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Series: |
Q19: The Queer American Nineteenth Century |
| Release date: |
June 2023 |
| Authors: |
Sarah Orne Jewett
|
| Editors: |
Don James McLaughlin
|
| Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
| Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
| Pages: |
216 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-1-5128-2426-1 |
| Categories: |
Books
|
| LSN: |
1-5128-2426-7 |
| Barcode: |
9781512824261 |
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