June 2023
Still Water Bending
by Wendy Mitman Clarke, Head to Wind Publishing 2017; 351pp, $17.
Reviewed by Christopher Birch
There’s been a lot of rumbling lately about the elusive work/life balance. For Jines Arley Evans, that issue is not a concern: The man just fishes. His boat is his work, and his work is his life and therein lies the balance. Evans plows through his days with an Ahab-like singularity of purpose, with family heritage driving him forward and tragic loss his constant companion. The true nature of boats, and the people who run them, shine through best when such complete dedication is achieved. But an obsession with fish isn’t always easy on a fisherman’s family. (Just ask Ahab’s wife.)
Wendy Mitman Clarke’s 2017 novel, “Still Water Bending,” tells the story of Evans, the serious fisherman, and Lily, his estranged daughter. Boats are central in the lives of both characters, and a boat is ultimately what forms the bond that reconnects them. Clarke’s ability to put us on deck fishing, or in a shed, scarfing planks, is the novel’s greatest strength.
Every single piece had to be measured and hand cut and measured and cut and measured again, and then shaped and fitted. Sometimes it would take a whole day just to get three or four planks finished. And even before that, you had to make sure that chine was cut just so, the angle exactly where it should be, or none of those boards would sit right and tight. You didn’t even have to think about that when you built a flat-bottom. But that kind of precision pleased him. More than that, the deadrise was just plain pretty. It would turn out like a miniature version of his Jenny Rae, with that cheeky, no-nonsense look up forward and a sheerline so fine it could make a dead man’s heart beat. A man could get some satisfaction out of building something like that.
Jines took another huge bite of pie and followed it with a swallow of coffee. He’d been ugly tired when he’d finally woken up this morning, like he was a million years old, but he was starting to feel better. He had the pattern for that deadrise skiff, a long thin piece of cedar his daddy had used years ago to cut out the sides. After that it was oak for the ribs, oak for the stem too, then stretching those sides back into the shape he loved.
Jines Arley Evans fishes the Chesapeake Bay, prefers crabs over lobsters, and has no relation to Dwight (go Sox!), but it’s still easy for the Points East reader to identify with him. There’s a commonality among commercial fishermen no matter what creature they’re hunting, or where. The diesel fuel smells the same, the pointy end is still up in the front, and the weather always wreaks havoc. Clarke’s vivid descriptions drive home both the attractions and the hardships of the profession and help us understand how for many, it’s a calling that can’t be resisted.
New England waters also play a role in the book. Portland, Maine, becomes daughter Lily’s adopted home town, and much of the novel is set in Casco Bay. The water in Maine is colder than in her childhood Chesapeake, and the green tones on the shoreline are darker. Two waterfront geographies connected but estranged. A sense of place pervades the novel and is essential to the identity of the characters.
Lily descends from a long line of fishermen, and she is predestined to be connected to the sea for life. Her father learned about the best timber for boatbuilding from his father. And those trees, the Atlantic white cedar and white oak, grow on the family land. Lily’s ancestors were literally able to carve a vocation at sea out of the hillside that surrounded their home. So many careers are all about the bottom line, or coworkers, or advancement. But a career in boats is all about the boats. It’s a dramatic turn of the tables. The truth about working your home waters is that when you’re at work, you’re home. The novel lays out a set of values that guide a career on the water, where maintaining a balanced boat in the balance of nature can provide a way to fold a life into a career instead of balancing a life against one.
A heavy question lingers over the book: How does a life on the water play out in the end? Not many fishing boats come with a pension plan. Not in Maine and not on the Chesapeake. What happens to a fisherman when old age creeps up? And it will.
“You can’t hold a tide, you can never hold a tide,” writes Clarke.
“Still Water Bending” is a beautifully crafted powerhouse of a novel. Readers won’t soon forget the lessons it delivers.
Christopher Birch is the founder of Birch Marine Inc. on Long Wharf, Boston. He is now out cruising full-time with his wife, Alex, and his standard poodle, Bill, aboard their 36-foot Morris Justine. Follow their voyage at EagleSevenSailing.com.
