Beach Reading

In 1620, a group of Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, prompting the first Thanksgiving in America. In 1648, another group of dissidents had an equally rough first couple of years of privation some distance south, as they founded the nation of the Bahamas on an island they called Eleuthera, meaning “freedom.” Since Plymouth, Massachusetts is frankly cold in November, my family decided to go to Eleuthera instead to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Eleuthera itself is ingénue actress shaped, three miles wide by one hundred miles long, but we spent the first five days of the trip on an island off the “main” island called Harbour Island, which is three miles long by a half miles wide. Fortunately it has a number of good hotels and restaurants filling up that limited space, and my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law joined Ian and me there. And if the famous pink sand of the island wasn’t enough of a draw, there was the beach reading as I passed around pages of my novel, fresh off the press.

It would be a cold-hearted author who didn’t dream of reducing his sweet mother to tears, so that goal achieved, I mark the vacation a complete success. I have returned with great editorial notes from my family, who are obviously supportive enough to be kind in their criticism, but very good editors with different specialties, noting when I reference the wrong fish to be in a lake, when my pronouns get mangled, and when I make huge leaps in logic to confound the most patient of readers. They’re so fiercely loyal, though, I’ve begun referring to them as my bulldogs.

On the last couple of days, Ian and I explored the main island of Eleutheria, which while much more beautiful than my fictional Midwestern city of Athelstan, Ohio, had in common with it that the best years had gone by decades ago. From a visitor’s point of view, that isn’t necessarily bad: you have the beautiful pink powdery beaches which used to attract royalty not to mention hundreds of visitors every week to the three airports on the island basically all to yourself. The people of Eleutheria and Harbour Island are unfailingly friendly, but there’s no doubt they’re suffering as resort after resort shuts down in the wake of economic woes and the more dramatic effects of several bad hurricane seasons. There’s very little to do. It’s like arriving at a party in time to see the caterers taking down the buffet.

I am generally a very relaxed person, and after a week of enforced relaxation, it’s all I can do to keep from slipping into a coma.