Synopsis

In December of 1927 off the tip of Cape Cod, a U. S. Navy submarine, the S-4, was rammed and sunk by an American destroyer, Paulding; then part of the Coast Guard’s anti-rum-runner patrol.  Six men survived for days, one hundred feet down, awaiting rescue.

Something for Nothing is a tapestry woven around this story drawing on rum-running, Provincetown’s artist colony, and this small fishing village’s unique setting. In this place, with its deep connections with the wider cultural life of the country, we see how a rum-runner, MacFarlane; a pair of artists, Albert and Peter; and Light House Keeper Gracie; were each affected by the long shadows of the Great War, Prohibition’s consequences, and the beginning of a spiritual unraveling ahead of the Crash of 1929. The accidental sinking of the S-4 is a pivotal event. The ill-fated rescue of six trapped sailors, and the effect this had on the community, reveal cracks in a society on the verge of the Great Depression and World War II.

My first novel, Shoal Hope, introduces us to some of the characters we see this story and to the dynamic currents swirling about the years immediately before World War I. Provincetown is a prism in which to explore themes that have dominated life in the century since that time. We can see the impact these forces have had reflected in the lives of a young boy entering the fisheries, a pair of young artists who’ve come to Provincetown for painting lessons and who then find lessons in life, and an old immigrant fisherman whose life lies in ruins as he ends his days on these shores.

These two novels can be read as a a pair, as a story and its prequel, or independently. They are part of an ongoing fascination I have with Provincetown, the place where I grew up. They show us the way the currents that have gotten us where we are today first appeared on the scene. In these Provincetown stories there may be hints towards how we might confront the looming challenges we now face. I see Provincetown as a place that has consistently been on the edge; but never isolated. A place where people have wrestled with a demanding natural environment while forging tight-knit communities made up of people unafraid to think for themselves.

Along with my wife, the photographer Katherine Mehls, I live in Narragansett, Rhode Island with our Portuguese Podengo bitch, Delfina.