From our June 2020 issue
One Goal | by Amy Bass
The true story of the 2015 championship season of Lewiston High’s soccer team, made up predominantly of East African immigrant students. Russo and Christie call it “a gripping underdog tale in the tradition of Friday Night Lights” that “reckons with the changes to Lewiston’s population and economy in the last decade, along with how the community has flourished as new Mainers have immigrated.
The Stranger in the Woods | by Michael Finkel
A detailed account of how Christopher Knight, central Maine’s North Pond Hermit, shunned civilization for 27 years — before being forced to return. “A humane and thoughtful story about solitude, civilization, and the natural world,” Russo and Christie say.
Vacationland | by John Hodgman
The Print team compares funnyman Hodgman’s dry, clever essays — on authenticity, leisure, and middle age — to E. B. White’s. “Hodgman captures the charm and eccentricities of Down East Maine. Squarely in the tradition of Maine humor, despite his protestations.”
The In-Betweens | by Mira Ptacin
Participant observation among psychic mediums and more in the country’s longest-running camp devoted to spiritualism. “Ptacin blends memoir and reportage in exploring this unique place,” Russo and Christie say, “as well as the hold that mysticism still has on the modern psyche.”
Maine | by J. Courtney Sullivan
Family tensions boil over when three generations of Kellehers arrive for a summer stay at their beachfront cottage in what Russo and Christie call “a sharp, funny alternative to the breezier ‘beach reads’ popularly set on the Maine coast.”