biographies/memoirs/depression era/Maine/farm life
THE DARK WELL:
Coming of Age on a Maine Farm
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The Dark Well: Coming of Age on a Maine Farm
by Brenda Shaw
Audenreed Press
A Division of Biddle Publishing Company
Brenda Shaw was born in the back bedroom of a Maine farmhouse in January, 1928.
A blizzard howled outside, and the roads were impassable. The doctor who had
been summoned was stuck in a snowdrift. Only her father was present to attend
her mother.
Brenda's memoir, The Dark Well, is a vivid depiction of growing up on a Maine
farm during the Great Depression and World War II. Her father's generation was
the last before farming with the horse, the plow and the hayrick was replaced by
the modern era of the mechanized factory farm. Shaw recounts the story of that
generation in transition, its struggles, joys and sorrows. Against this
backdrop, the author tells a tale of deception and secrecy arising from a family
tragedy. She spends her childhood and adolescence trying to unravel the mystery
of who her mother was, and what had happened to her. In the process, Shaw
confronts several versions of "truth," and learns, in the end, to
understand and forgive her family. The mystery theme adds tension and forward
movement to the story and gives it a dimension beyond nostalgia. ISBN:
1-879418-89-4
©1996
$14.95 US
Softcover 424 Pages
To order this book...
REVIEWS
"With grace and intelligence, Shaw stitches together the torn
fabric of her life. She has written a richly-detailed evocative country-quilt of
a story, tracing her growing up on a Depression-era farm and her struggles, from
the dawning of her memory, with the powerful awareness that even
well-intentioned love can hurt. It's a fine story of love and forgiveness."
--Faris Cassell
The Register Guard, Eugene, OR
"This memoir will delight anyone who grew up in the Depression, anyone who
wonders what life meant then, and anyone who can enjoy the story of a plucky
girl spiritedly struggling against long odds to live her own life. Not for the
timorous, the book, though warm and generous, is unflinching in its portrayal of
raw cruelty and suffering . . . Rich indeed are the experiences presented in
this memoir. Her account of a time in hell at the one-room school house will
cure anyone's false nostalgia for that institution. Brave and resourceful, she
details learning everything from curing boils to playing strip poker, from
making a frappe to stacking a hayrick. She tells of killing a teacher with
voodoo, reveals a shocking tale of her 12-year-old friend brazenly carrying on a
love affair with a married man 20 years older than she, and shows how, despite
poverty and adult opposition on nearly every hand, she earned her way to leave
Maine and graduate from Boston University . . . Shaw's sharp sense of character,
of the petty, the mean, the narrow, as well as the big-hearted and the generous,
populates her pages with a wealth of people that Dickens would envy."
Merle Drown
Maine in Print, Brunswick, ME
"Brenda Shaw was born into a silent family on a 100-acre Maine farm during
a January blizzard in 1928. Her father was the only person assisting her mother.
Hers was not a simple country childhood, and the family not a simply family: In
silent families, communication takes place, but without words. The look of an
eye, a gesture with a hand, the drawing in of breath, the turning away from a
question, all had their meanings . . . Shaw's story contains mystery as well as
the elements of a historical novel. Her eye for detail and her exceptional
ability to retain early memories bring her own early history alive. She
describes farming equipment, her family's house, her school, the countryside,
the morality of the times and her gradual awakening to the outside world with
precision and artistry."
--Susanne Twight-Alexander
The Eugene Weekly, OR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brenda Shaw grew upon a Maine farm and worked her way through Boston University.
After receiving her Doctorate in Biological Sciences, she lived for a number of
years in Scotland with her British husband, and raised two Scottish-born sons.
While in Scotland, she worked as a scientist, lecturer and senior lecturer at
the Dundee University Medical School. Her scientific writings include two
editions of a textbook and thirty-eight research papers.
Shaw's short stories, non-fiction and poems have appeared in various periodicals
and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic. She edited an anthology of recent
Dundee poetry, Seagate II (Taxvs Press, Durham, England, 1984), and her first
collection of poems, The Cold Winds of Summer, was published by Blind Serpent
Press, Dundee, Scotland, in 1987. Both of these books received publication
grants from the Scottish Arts Council.
She returned to the States in 1987, and now makes her home in Eugene, Oregon,
where she continues her writing career. In 1992 she was one of eight Northwest
writers selected to participate in an NEA-funded program sponsored by Centrum,
the arts and education organization based in Port Townsend, Washington. The
program included a month's residency with time and space for creative work. Two
more residencies at Centrum followed in 1993 and 1994, and in 1995 she was
awarded a six-week Walden Fellowship, during which residency she completed her
recently published memoir The Dark Well (Audenreed Press, 1997). Its prequel,
Eliza and Mentora, The Story of a Pioneer Family in Northern Maine, was
published in July, 2003.
In October, 2003, Shaw and her family returned to their permanent home in
Dundee, Scotland, where she will continue her writing career. Her books will
remain available in the U.S. through this website.