Second Growth

Nearly two decades after her debut novel, Ruth Moore writes a saltier tale of Downeast life in Second Growth (1962). Rife with violent deaths, natural disasters, and even attempted blackmail, the town of Hillville has seen better days. Even the land is exhausted and has given what it can. Residents can no longer fish, farm, or manufacture to earn a good living, so they pick up seasonal work and otherwise rely on government support. When an illegitimate child is born and subsequently lost, the local doctor does what he thinks is best, igniting a series of events that engulfs the entire town, from wild-child Beck Overholt to eighty-two-year-old Clemintina Wilkinson, over the course of six months. Moore, a master of detail, weaves an intricate plot that reveals a craggy underbelly of small-town humanity that rivals Maine’s rocky coast.