In a Place Like No Other
- ISBN-10
- 0974122009
- ISBN-13
- 9780974122007
- Category
- Gloucester (Mass.)
- Pages
- 296
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2002
- Author
- Ed Touchette
Description
Like so many refugees from the social and political turmoil of 1960's America, Frank Noal heads out looking for a new sense of self and place. He emigrates to Gloucester, Massachusetts, the world renowned fishing port, and works as a part time maintenance man and bartender at what remains of the North Shore's last grand hotel, Rackliffe House located on Rocky Neck. Here, Frank becomes enamored of Donna Pearce, a madcap expressionist painter, and involved in a volatile and voluble affair with the Gloucester native. As their relationship develops amidst the eclectic mix of artists, fishermen, poets and tourists frequenting the subterranean bar at Rackliffe House, it becomes apparent to both Frank and Donna that Jack Carson, the hotel's mismanager, the son of Senator Maynard Carson, and Frank's old college roommate, is conducting other business in an illegal and illicit fashion. With the assistance of their friend, the avuncular gay desk clerk, Harley Fenton, they finally uncover the facts regarding Jack's import-export endeavors.As important as the driving forces - the romance of a street savvy independent woman and an obtuse highly educated bartender and the mystery of Jack's convoluted misdeeds - the book speaks to the rampant social dysfunction of the 1970's and the sanctuary offered by the natural and built beauty of places like the world famous fishing port. It relates a time when so many baby boomers experienced a dramatic sense of loss and engaged life courses they never could have imagined. Spiced with the allegories of Frank's boyhood friend, an Abenaki storyteller, the humor and history of Donna Pearce, and the poetry of a beleaguered Viet Nam vet with a head full of schrapnel, the story winds to a bittersweet conclusion as the scene is revisited after the dot com debacle and the corporate scandals of the early Twenty First Century. Please note: The author, Ed Touchette, is a nationally recognized artist and a graduate of the School of Architecture at R.P.I. His work is featured on the cover and ten block prints relating to the architectural history of Gloucester, an integral part of the story, decorate the interior of the book.
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