Ten hurricanes have hit Massachusetts since 1851: five of them Category One, three Category Two, and two Category Three on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The worst in recent memory was Hurricane Bob, which struck September 21, 1991, but the worst in generations was the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, which was a Category Five at its formation in the Atlantic and Cat Three when it made landfall. Tales of its devastation linger along the coast.
Unnamed, but seared in local memory, is what came to be called The Perfect Storm, after Sebastian Junger’s nonfiction account of a combined nor’easter/cyclone that formed off Nova Scotia from the remnant of Hurricane Grace, in the days running up to Halloween, 1991. It did not make landfall, but is credited with waves that may have surged as high as one hundred feet, deadly to one particular swordfishing boat and crew caught on the Georges Bank.
Happily, no hurricane on record has made landfall directly on Nantucket, although the island is frequently ravaged by storms and their consequent damage. My account of Teddy in this novel is entirely fictitious, as is my creative interpretation of the hurricane’s possible impact; my description of the preparations, official and private, that islanders might take in advance of such a natural disaster are, however, drawn from Nantucket’s public preparedness websites and evacuation zone maps. I make no pretense to complete accuracy in portraying the impact of an island hurricane; the details are hypothetical, and I hope they remain so.
Life on Tuckernuck Island is one of Nantucket’s cherished subjects of speculation. A few islanders who own boats sometimes graze the smaller island’s shores, for fishing and hunting purposes, but few trespassers venture into the private world that remains discreetly guarded by its homeowners. The responses of Nantucketers, when I mentioned I was planning to visit Tuck, were predictable and almost comical—to a person, they stared at me open-mouthed for a few seconds, before recovering enough to say, “I’ve always wanted to see that place. How are you getting over there?” Tuckernuck might as well have been the summit of Everest, or the dark side of the moon. It took me nearly a year of stumbling queries to arrange a visit myself.
I must therefore thank a group of people who agreed to share memories and a few facts about their cherished community. I am so grateful to Denver resident and friend Steve Coffin, a descendant of one of the four founding families of Nantucket and later Tuckernuck, who generously put me in touch with his network of Tuckernuck summer residents. These include Michael, who has been fortunate enough to spend part of every year of his life on Tuckernuck, along with generations of his family; Lorin, his childhood friend, who was often invited to the island for halcyon summers; and Margot, who has gathered her family for decades to vacation on Tuckernuck. (I omit their surnames for purposes of privacy.) I am deeply grateful to the Souza brothers, island caretakers who ferried me from Jackson Point to the Tuckernuck lagoon one bright July day, despite their obvious apprehension that I was a rank interloper committing some sort of scam. Their accounts of the details they have managed for years—from home repair and construction, to medical evacuation, garbage collection, lawn mowing, solar panel installation and the delivery of every last folding chair, flower arrangement, caterer and portable john required for a Tuckernuck wedding of over a hundred guests—were invaluable. Thanks also to Seth Levine of Nantucket for his willingness to help me penetrate Tuckernuck’s veil. None of the people who talked to me is responsible in any way for my portrait of the island, or my errors in depicting it.
Anecdotes and assistance aside, I don’t pretend to know what living on Tuckernuck is truly like, nor have I captured much in this story about the smaller island’s extraordinary atmosphere. It is haunting in its isolation and beauty, the untamed cacophony of its flocks of birds, the stillness of its sudden woods, the wind stirring among its wetlands, unobserved by the world. I hope the people who treasure Tuckernuck are left happily to do so, in peace.
One night, a few summers ago on Nantucket, remains a warm memory: sitting around a candleflame at Dune, one of my favorite restaurants, during the Nantucket Book Festival. The people at that table—Mark, my husband; Rafe Sagalyn, my literary agent, and his wife, Anne; Juliet Grames, associate publisher of Soho Crime, and my editor on this novel; and Paul Oliver, head of Soho’s publicity department—have supported my work as a writer for years. I’m grateful to each of you. Thanks also to Soho publisher Bronwen Hruska, and to Rachel Kowal, who turned this manuscript into something that could be read.
Francine Mathews
September, 2019