Strong Men

The heroine of the novel “Strong Men” finds herself in a harsh land of unwelcoming people, to whom it’s not so easy to prove anything. Only eighteen-year-old Ruth manages to add resonance to this steady, sea-waves-like rhythm of life.

“Twenty miles off the coast of Maine, Fort Niles and Corn Haven look at each other across the water. They’re like two old men trying to outstare each other, and each is convinced that the other would be lost without him. Nothing lies near these islands. They are in the middle of emptiness. Rocky, shaped like huge potatoes, they form a small archipelago. To find these islands on the map is like making an ‘exploration’—discovering twin cities on the prairie, twin towns in the desert, two completely identical yurts in the tundra. Isolated from the whole world, Fort Niles and Corn Haven are separated from each other only by a narrow strip of fast current—this body of water is called the Worthy Strait. The Worthy Strait, about a mile wide, is in places so shallow that, if you’re thinking about what you’re doing (if you really are thinking about what you’re doing), you’ll probably think long and hard before deciding to swim across even in a canoe.”