Peter Loon : a novel / Van Reid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reid, Van.

Language:

English

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

298 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Viking, [2002]

Summary:

The American Revolution has ended. The District of Maine remains a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Deep in these north woods, a young man -- a boy, really, who has never been away from his home in Sheepscott Great Pond -- sets off at his mother's urging to search for a person he has never met. His travels quickly lead him into a series of startling entanglements and adventures and, providentially, into a friendship with a nomadic parson with a seafaring past whose humble intelligence and steady head prove useful when Peter Loon finds the world away from home to be more dangerous and complex than he had ever imagined.

For Peter is soon caught in the middle of a rebellion. The "Great Proprietors," many of whom are from Boston, have claimed vast tracts of this northern Maine district, based on dusty old King's grants and contradictory Indian deeds. Now hardscrabble homesteaders who pushed north to squat on the land in order to survive have staked their right to this same wilderness. Bands form. Violent incidents between land agents and the feral brotherhood of "Liberty Men" escalate. Crisscrossing their way between the two sides, Peter Loon and Parson Leach tread the razor-thin line between law and justice and encounter every kind of person and situation, from a bellicose meeting of "Liberty Men" at a wayside inn to a dangerous confrontation over the fate of a tormented girl, from a great sea captain's manor populated with maddeningly handsome young women with a taste for adventurers to a climactic dispute at the storied harbor of Wiscasset.

Van Reid's Moosepath novels have brought joy to the many readers who have discovered his wise and wonderful characters and surprising turns of plot. "Thoroughly easygoing and entertaining," avows The New York Times. "What makes Reid's novels so enjoyable is that they seamlessly combine a time and place," raves The Washington Post -- words especially true of this latest book. Splendidly written, with the inimitable storytelling, irresistibly etched characters, and gentle humor that make Reid such a master, Peter Loon is a breathtaking, magical tale of high adventure and great humanity.

Contents:

Chapter 1. How Ezekiel Peter Black Came to Sheepscott Great Pond and How His Young Daughter Was Courted 1

Chapter 2. Of Rosemund Loon's Strangeness, and Silas Loon's Death, and How Their Son Peter Was Sent in Search of an Uncle "By Marriage." 8

Chapter 3. Of Peter Loon's First Night in the Forest 17

Chapter 4. How Peter Loon Conjured Himself from a Felled Buck, and How He Met Two Woodsmen and a Parson 26

Chapter 5. How Peter Fell in with Parson Leach 34

Chapter 6. Of the March to Plymouth Gore, and of the Place They Went Instead 41

Chapter 7. How Peter Loon and Parson Leach Were Received at the Ale Wife's Tavern, Who They Met, and What They Learned There 50

Chapter 8. Concerning a Conversation on the Beach, and the Consequences of Mr. Tillage's Peep of Heaven 61

Chapter 9. Concerning Antinomianism and Other Matters 68

Chapter 10. Of the Road to New Milford, Unexpected Meetings, and How a Peaceful Man Might Be Driven to Anger 79

Chapter 11. Concerning a Change in Plans, a Parting of the Ways, as Well as an Introduction to the Busy Abode of Captain Clayden as Governed by Mrs. Magnamous 95

Chapter 12. Concerning an Interview with Captain Clayden 107

Chapter 13. How Peter Spent His First Night on Clayden Point, and How He Was Perceived by Young Women There 118

Chapter 14. Of What It Meant to Pique-Nique and the Inevitability of Certain Failures 130

Chapter 15. Concerning New Visitors to Captain Clayden and Their Opinions 150

Chapter 16. Of the Road to New Milford, and What They Discovered at Great Meadow Copse 166

Chapter 17. Concerning the Encounter at Benjamin Brook 185

Chapter 18. How Opinion Differed over the Course of a Few Hours and a Few Miles, and What Was Said at the Sign of the Star and Sturgeon 189

Chapter 19. Concerning Matters with Elspeth Gray and Gray Farm 207

Chapter 20. How the Parson Was Accused by

and Peter Attached to

Nathan Barrow 219

Chapter 21. Concerning the Disposition of Two Hundred 234

Chapter 22. Concerning the March to Wiscasset 237

Chapter 23. How Peter Came to His Third Tavern, and How He Put the Night's Adventures into Motion 246

Chapter 24. How Peter Loon Came to the Jail at Wiscasset and What Happened There 255

Chapter 25. How Peter Loon Returned to New Milford and How He Left There Again 273

Chapter 26. How Peter Journeyed Home and What He Found There 279

Chapter 27. Concerning Peter Loon's Decisions and also What Was Decided for Him 288.

ISBN:

067003052X :

OCLC:

50137503