Pocketful of Names: A Novel

I was introduced to Joe Coomer with his only non-fiction book "Dream House-On Building a House by a Pond" which I had picked up because I was in a fit of remodeling a hundred-year-old house and wanted to hear someone else's horror stories. As it turned out it wasn't horrific but rather funny. Intrigued, I found copies of his first books, "The Decatur Road," "Kentucky Love" and "A Flatland Fable" which were wonderful. But the deal was sealed when I read "The Loop", about a quirky guy who traveled the looping interstate around Dallas-Ft Worth every night to pick up road kill, who had a wily old parrot show up at his screen door. That's Coomer's style, just a little off center. I just finished "Pocketful of Names" last night and am already feeling the loss. Joan Didion said "When I'm near the end of a good book, I need to sleep in the same room with it." I would go so far as to say, I would want to have this book permanently shelved next to my bed. I'm not going to tell you the story (read it, you'll find out what it's about). I am going to tell you that it is rich with pure language. There are no superfluous words between the covers of this book. It is a purely readable treat of depth and character and subtle wisdoms. I found myself rereading whole paragraphs just to savor them. If you've never read any of Joe Coomer's fiction, I don't know if I would start with this book. That would be like trying on the perfect dress first, and then you loose that growing excitement as it builds from book to book. Start from the beginning. You won't regret the time spent in Joe's company.

I picked this book up by accident off of our library's "new books" section. I had never heard of Joe Coomer and had no idea what I was in for. Wow!! This is truly one of the best books I've ever read. I loved it and can't wait to recommend it to my reading friends. I'm going to read other books by Coomer as soon as I can find them.

Hannah Bryant, artist and recluse, embodies the atmosphere of the Maine island she occupies. Proud, isolated, prickly, rugged, driven and moody, she fiercely guards her solitary life, patrolling her island against invaders and incorporating the place into her art. "She craved isolation, and thought an island the most productive place for her to work as an artist. Focused. Find a center and stand there and work in place. The natural barrier of the sea would not only keep her in place but repel others, all those who felt the need to praise or critique her work, to talk about art rather than live it." Her patrols of the island are not just to chase off tourist kayakers, but also a defense against an unknown invader who digs holes on her fragile island, mysterious, pointless holes. Hannah has never succeeded in catching sight of this intruder, but the sight of a new hole always shakes her. Caught up in Coomer's graceful, muscular prose, the reader soon absorbs his sense of place and feels at home inside Hannah's head. Although the story is told in the third person (but from Hannah's point of view) this identification between place and protagonist imbues the story with a salty, windswept romanticism. Hannah, despite her rigidity, unfriendliness and pretension, claims our interest and sympathy from the first, when she discovers an old dog washed up in the disused quarry at the center of her little island. "The first thing Hannah said to the dog: `I don't know if there's enough room for you on this island. I'm already here.' " Of course she is also calculating how to get the exhausted dog out of the quarry, though a part of her already shies from the distraction of affection. Hannah is not a person who cuts herself a lot of slack. "She believed so stringently in natural fibers that the comfort and warmth of her Polartec made her feel as if she were a backslider, a plastic heretic." Yet we like her. Perhaps it's her eye; so observant and full of wonder and delight. Winching the dog out of the quarry, the sunlight falls on him as he rises: "He was surrounded by the reflection of light off flecks of mica and facets of quartz embedded in the granite face." Or maybe it's the love she has for the island and Arno, the great-uncle who left it to her. The island days she recalls from her childhood and college years were few, but magical. On the island she was off the grid. School and city pace forgotten, she was a sternman on her uncle's lobster boat, bagging bait and banding keepers, part of a world regulated by the sea. But now Hannah, 34, lives for her artwork. Successful in her art, as most of her friends were not, Hannah finds herself with fewer friends each year. After Arno's death, shaken by the suicide of a lover she could not love, she travels to the island, and without really intending to, stays on. In the six years since, she's become increasingly jealous of her isolation and any intrusion that takes time from her art. She's proud of her com

The greatest thing about Joe Coomer's writing is that he makes us "feel." In the two books that I've read, I found the plots well-constructed, the characters and dialogue "true-to-life," and the scenery description so vivid that I wanted to take my next vacation in that exact setting. And he has not let his readers down in this book that's set on the rugged coastline of Maine. I feel like dashing there the minute I finish this review. A wondrous place! In this well-crafted book, my heart went out to Hannah, an artist whose solitary existence on an island was interrupted in the worst possible way: with too many people suddenly descending on her way of life. One of the most endearing characters was Driftwood, the lovable mutt who drifted in on the tide. He was good for Hannah ... but were the other unexpected visitors: the teen-aged runaway, her sister, the mainland family? And how does a trapped whale fit in? What secrets do these newcomers discover? And how does Hannah handle the new emotional challenges? Well, you will just have to read the book to see for yourself. Meanwhile, I'm going to read "The Loop," Coomer's book that's being made into a movie starring Penelope Cruz. Can't wait to read this book, then see the movie. Coomer has accomplished what every author dreams of: a book being made into a movie! Way to go, Joe!

This is the sixth or seventh Coomer novel I've read. It's his best. The characterizations are subtle, the revelations are extraordinary and ordinary. The setting is as always lovingly explored. I like Coomer for the way he writes, not necessarily what he writes about, but the themes he explores here hit home with me: losing what you love and carrying on. It's a truly adult novel that I'll go back to again and again.