The Fix

Hemingway House and Museum

“It’s the best place I’ve ever been anytime, anywhere, flowers, tamarind trees, guava trees, coconut palms…Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks.”—Ernest Hemingway

Key West in July. An explosion of tropical colors, pastel bungalows, red flame trees arching over streets and gardenias perfuming the air. Breezeless air hangs heavy; the rhythms of the island, slow and sweat-drenched. I came to join in the Hemingway Days Festival, an annual summer celebration of the author’s larger-than-life persona. This is the time when white-bearded Papa Look-Alikes stroll the streets in safari dress or khaki shorts.

Hemingway first came to Key West in 1928, accompanied by his second wife, Pauline, to pick up a Model A Ford roadster, a wedding gift from her Uncle Gus. Its delivery was delayed several weeks, so the dealership invited the Hemingways to stay in an apartment above the showroom. He worked on A Farewell to Arms there and fell in love with the sleepy fishing village.

They returned in 1931, bought the house on Whitehead Street, and raised two sons. The great thing about the Hemingway House guides is that they tell tales. Some may be apocryphal, but they certainly jazz up the tour.  Steve, our guide, blamed the stylish Pauline for our sweaty discomfort. She had all the ceiling fans removed and replaced with electric chandeliers crafted in Europe. With no central air and 20 tourists in our group, we relied on the sad upright fans in each room.      

The second-floor balcony gave us a burst of fresh air and a look at the nearby lighthouse. In the 1930s, it offered a beacon to Hemingway whenever he emerged from a bar – Sloppy Joe’s was a favorite – and sloshed his way home. Joe Russell, the bar’s owner and Hemingway’s buddy, became outraged when his landlord raised rent a dollar per month. He and patrons ripped out sinks, urinals, whatever, before they vacated. One of those urinals, flipped on its side, now adorns the Hemingway garden, although Hemingway claimed to have no recollection of how it got there. Today it provides a fresh water bowl for the cats, but when the lovely Pauline first saw it, she protested. Her husband prevailed, arguing, “I passed a fortune through this urinal.”

Forty-four cats – that day’s count – trace their origins to Hemingway’s Snowball, a six-toed (polydactyl) gift from a sea captain. Females are allowed one litter before spaying. Only a few toms roam the property; the remaining males are neutered and serve as “consultants.” Half of all the kittens are born with the genetic polydactyl trait. Steve explained Hemingway believed the polydactyls brought good luck and, since he was accident prone, he needed a larger share of luck.

Pablo Picasso, knowing Hemingway’s fondness for cats, gave him an abstract ceramic cat in Paris. A reproduction sits on a cabinet in the upstairs bedroom because the original, from the 1920s, was stolen in 2000. The thief smashed the cat before being apprehended. Steve snarled that Key West’s old hanging tree still exists, and suggested that lynching would have provided a more suitable resolution than the burglar’s short jail stint. If rope were available to our tour group, I think a mob could have formed.

Hemingway called Key West home from 1931 until 1939 and wrote 70% of his work here, including For Whom the Bell Tolls, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” To Have and Have Not, Green Hills of Africa, and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” The house’s interior reflects Pauline, but the second floor of the old carriage house, Hemingway’s writing study, pulls us into his world. Horned animal heads and fish hanging on the walls remind us of his passion for the outdoors. A small round table holding a typewriter anchors the room. The chair is the kind used by Cuban cigar makers. Visitors showed a greater solemnity in this room because miracles happened here.

Despite the heat, we regretted leaving the compound. The only thing to be done was cross the street to toast Papa, man and myth, with a cold mojito.

—Ann Marie Byrd

Ira Sukrungruang: An Interview

Ira Sukrungruang is the author of Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Sun, Creative Nonfiction, and North American Review. He is the co-founder of Sweet: A Literary Confection and teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida.

My initial email reached you in Thailand. How often do you visit and how does that country nourish your spirit?

I’ve been going to Thailand every other year since I was three. My family wanted to instill in me this other part of my life. Yes, I was born in America, but I am the product of two proud Thai parents. It’s funny that you asked about how my visit “nourishes” my spirit. It really does. In America, when I’ve been away from Thailand for a long time, I have these moments of yearning, moments of wanting to be in Thailand. These moments are not so much about the spirit, as it has to do with missing family. Since my mother and aunt moved back to Thailand after 36 years working as nurses in Chicago, I don’t have blood relatives in the states. So this time in Thailand is to connect with my mother and aunt and all the cousins and uncles and nephew and nieces. It’s also about learning or relearning another rhythm and pace of life.

You decided to be a Buddhist monk for a month during one of your visits. What did you learn from that experience?

I’ve always had questions about Buddhism. I was born Buddhist, and because of that Buddhism was more connected to family than to religion. As I got older, I realized I hadn’t a clue about what it meant to be Buddhist. I knew the prayers and the precepts and the noble truths, but I didn’t know the meanings behind them. For years, my mother has been urging me to become a monk. All Thai males have this obligation. It’s for the family, for good karma. I’ve been hesitant because I was a vain bugger, and the thought of losing my hair and eyebrows filled me with dread. Since my mother retired in Thailand, I decided why not do it Thailand. Why not be a monk and really try to answer some of my lingering questions?

The funny thing about my month as a monk was by the end I had more questions, questions I’m still trying to sift through even now. I feel closer to my religion, yes, but there are still things I wonder about. I’ve tried writing about it, but too many things enter my pieces. I remember reading Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story, remember how hard a time she had writing about her visit to Egypt. In many ways, I’m still too close to the subject. I need to sit with it a bit, ruminate, meditate on it.

I think I’ll always have questions. It’s the reason I write about religion so often. It’s a pursuit to understand, to make sense of.

Are you planning something as bold on this visit?

No, I think the boldest thing I’m doing on this visit is hanging with my seventy-six year old mother and her funny family. I had a few weeks this time, so I really wanted to saturate myself with family. Plus, my wife joins me later on the trip, and we got married here ten years ago, so

we’re planning an anniversary vacation. I think bold for two writers and teachers who are always working is sitting still and doing nothing. Kinda Buddhist if you think about it.

Tell me about Sweet: A Literary Confection, an online journal for creative nonfiction and poetry. What motivated you to be a co-founder? What have you discovered since its inception?

Sweet is a project my wife Katie Riegel and I decided to venture into. We are now in our fourth year, publishing three online issues a year, and also, we are now publishing handmade chapbooks. When Katie and I got married, we also married two genres: creative nonfiction and poetry. Sweet wants to explore the conversation between these two genres. There’s great

conversation to be had there, better than the fact vs. fiction one that seems to always trail creative nonfiction.

I think what I find most surprising about editing a magazine is how many good writers there are out there. We receive so many submissions, and a lot of them are extremely good. The decision to publish something becomes very subjective. Sweet does not want to overwhelm readers, so we try to keep our issues small. Sometimes the reason we have to pass on a piece is because of space.

There’s been an explosion of MFA programs in the last few decades. What are the pros and cons of this reality?

 To be honest, I don’t find anything wrong with having more MFA programs if you are realistic about your expectations as a writer. Don’t expect to be published. Don’t expect a teaching job. Expect three years of writing and reading and learning, and living a writer’s life, a thinker’s life. I am proof that writing can be taught. English is a second language for me, so without great professors guiding me in craft and technique and introducing me to writers that have changed and shaped my life, I wouldn’t be here. The MFA program was a selfish time for me to be an artist without other distractions. I was around others passionate about the art, others striving to write a good sentence. These writers made me want to get better, made me want to perfect my craft.

The MFA program was that first step, for me, as a writer. I’m always thinking of myself as a student of writing. I’m still learning. I’m still challenging myself. I still want every piece I write to be better than the last. I love language, the sound of it. I love the infinite ways one can write a sentence. This keeps writing fresh. This keeps me motivated.

And again, more honesty here, teaching in an MFA program and a strong undergrad program also keeps things exciting. I love my students. I feed off them. They come whole heartedly to learn. Seeing them progress as writers makes me want to do the same. Moreover, we are all in it together. Part of the same tribe. It makes me feel not as alone in the world.

You write creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and memoir. Which one challenges you the most? Which one feels most comfortable to you?

Creative nonfiction opened the doors to other genres. I had to learn about myself, my life. I needed to mature before I could even start writing fiction and poetry. To me all writing, regardless of genre, is about understanding the complexities of the human condition. Writing at the core is about communication. I had to believe what I was putting down on the page was worthwhile. If there isn’t anything at stake for me, then there isn’t anything at stake for the reader.

In terms of comfort, each genre presents its own difficulties. Because of this, I can’t write two genres at the same time. I have to write one genre, be done with it, rest my brain for a bit, before switching gears. It’s a completely different mindset.

Your memoir Talk Thai is infused with humor and poignancy. How do you manage to blend the two?

There are two things I tell my students when they are attempting to write humor:

1) What is the serious behind the laugh? Writing effective humor is about locating the source of the serious. The serious becomes the foundation, becomes what readers will remember most. Without a foundation, your story becomes a bar joke, easily forgettable. One of my favorite comics is Whoopi Goldberg. When she first came on scene, she did a routine that was utterly stunning. She did persona pieces—the crack addict, the abused child—and all I remember was how silent the theater was until she delivered the punch line. The audience erupted. They needed to. They were taken on such a sobering and solemn journey that the need to laugh was essential.

2) We possess different types of laughs. The quiet laugh. The laugh out loud. The obnoxious laugh. Watch a good comic at work, and he or she knows this. The trick is knowing what laugh to pull out at what time. It becomes about timing and execution.

You are a writer, educator, and editor. How do you know when you’re having a good day?

When I can’t sleep. When I’m left energized. Writing a good sentence. Teaching a good class. Finding an incredible essay. All of this feeds me. It makes me feel like I can run a marathon. Makes me feel like this artist’s life is worth it. There is no better feeling, I assure you.

—Interviewed by Ann Marie Byrd

Celebrating Stephen Crane

None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. —Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat”

These lines open Stephen Crane’s (1871–1900) horrific short story, “The Open Boat.” Based on his own experience, the story reveals the brutality and randomness of nature as four exhausted men, imprisoned in the confines a ten-foot dingy, are battered by frigid winds and treacherous waves.

Captain Edward Murphy of the SS Commodore (pictured right) recounted his crew’s desperate struggle for survival. Actually, the delightful John Mann, a Ponce Inlet Lighthouse volunteer, assumed Murphy’s persona at Lilian House’s 2012 Stephen Crane Festival in March. Stephen Crane recuperated here after his harrowing experience at sea – although nightmares haunted him for the remainder of his short life.

Lilian Place, with its high ceilings, wood crown moldings and heart-of-pine floors, typifies Italianate High Victorian architecture. Laurence and Mary Eliza Thompson, among Daytona Beach’s first residents, built it on the Halifax River in 1884, salvaging their woodwork from shipwrecks. No bridges to the mainland existed, so residents and visitors rowed, sailed or took the ferry across the river (now the Intracoastal Waterway). The Thompson family lived here for 100 years, selling it in 1984. The Heritage Trust Preservation of Volusia County acquired the neglected property in 2009 and set about restoring it. Dr. Nancy Long heads the Trust and relies on an all-volunteer team to bring the house to life. Furnishings, on loan from Daytona Beach residents, create the feel of a luxurious 1884 dwelling. The volunteers deserve enormous credit for their efforts to date. They’ve repaired the roof, tented for termites, fixed water damage, restored the exterior, and repainted the historic building in original colors.

It’s no surprise that the house has attracted a supernatural spirit. Lucille, a ghost, is a long-time resident of Lilian Place. On the second floor, “Lucille’s Room” contains several dollhouses.  Lucille first appeared about 100 years ago, wearing a white, button-up high collar. In 1950 she appeared to a renter and said, “Don’t be afraid. My name is Lucille.” Those who grew up in the house have recalled Lucille’s pranks, such as turning on water in the bathroom, locking doors and switching on the vacuum cleaner. Dr. Long said the Lilian Place sensor alarm sounds in the middle of the night about once a week, so perhaps Lucille’s mischief continues.

Stephen Crane, a newspaper correspondent for the New York Press, came to Jacksonville, Florida, to write about gun running. He approached the SS Commodore’s Captain Edward Murphy in the dining room of the St. James Hotel (now City Hall). Crane, 24, already enjoyed a national reputation because of The Red Badge of Courage, a book remarkable for its time because the story’s told from a private’s point of view. Captain Murphy recognized Crane and invited the author and his companion, Cora, to join him for dinner. Crane had met the notorious Cora a few days earlier in a love-you-forever moment. At dinner, Crane broached the subject of signing on as an able bodied seaman, a convenient cover for his correspondent work.

The SS Commodore was the finest of the filibustering fleet. A century ago filibuster meant privately funded military campaigns against foreign nations. The Cuban Junta’s leadership in New York had acquired the Commodore, a former harbor tug, and assigned her to Jacksonville, Florida. She made several successful trips to Cuba at a time when it was illegal to supply guns to rebels hoping to overthrow Spanish loyalists.

The Commodore’s greatest fame, like the Titanic’s, came from her sinking. She went under on January 2, 1897, eleven miles off of Daytona Beach. Why she sank is open to speculation: perhaps the guns and money overloaded her; perhaps running aground – twice – on Jacksonville’s foggy St. John’s River caused damage; perhaps the heavy seas and unpredictable currents finally overwhelmed her.

The illicit nature of filibustering offered allure and excitement because capture by Loyalist Cubans could result in death by firing squad. There was precedent. A couple of weeks before the Commodore’s departure from Jacksonville on New Year’s Eve, 1896, however, filibustering was legalized. Without the worry of harassment, the crew hoped for an uneventful journey.

Crane and Captain Murphy conversed during their two days at sea. On January 2, 1897, while talking to Crane in the pilothouse, the engineer informed the captain that the Commodore was taking on water.

Three lifeboats and a dingy launched into rough, cold waters, the temperature estimated at 56 degrees. Separated from the other boats, the ten-foot dingy held Captain Murphy, Crane (pictured above), oiler Billy Higgins, and Montgomery, cook and steward. They were packed so tightly that any movement had to be coordinated with the others before making the attempt.

One of the lifeboats floundered and those crew members reboarded the Commodore and went into the water with her. A man swam toward the dingy. The captain ordered Montgomery to throw him a rope, and instructed the man to stay in the water so they could tow him. Panicked, the man started pulling hand-over-fist toward the dingy. Captain Murphy made a decision that would haunt him forever: he told Montgomery to release the rope.

They rowed and bailed for 31½ hours. The light from the Mosquito Inlet lighthouse (now Ponce Inlet Lighthouse) offered a beacon of hope. Crane wrote: “It was precisely like the point of a pin. It took an anxious eye to find a lighthouse so tiny.” As infinitesimal as the lighthouse looked to Crane, it is one of the tallest in the country. Its light, magnified by an oil-lamp Fresnel lens, stretched from St. Augustine to Cape Canaveral and 20 miles out to sea.

The dingy capsized as it hit the furious surf near shore. Crane had $700 in Spanish gold strapped to him and quickly shed his money belt. It’s still out there. They reached shore, but any joy at being alive was tempered by Billy Higgins’ drowned body lying on the beach. Crane recuperated that night at the Thompson’s home.

Six miles from Lilian Place stands the lighthouse. On the nights of January 2 and 3, 1897, lighthouse keeper Thomas Patrick O’Hagan and assistants carried the kerosene 203 steps up the tower, as they did each evening, in 40-pound containers. They gave Crane that glimmer of hope. The lighthouse property contains exhibits on the keepers and their families and a lens exhibit. Each night the lighthouse continues operating, although now a 1,000-watt lamp operated by volunteers provides private aid for navigation.

Crane died of tuberculosis 3½ years later in Badenweiler, Germany. With Cora’s arms encircling him he feverishly muttered about changing positions in the dinghy.

For more information:
http://www.heritagepreservationtrust.org/
http://www.ponceinlet.org/

To assist with renovation efforts of Lilian Place, contact Dr. Nancy Long: longnz1@gmail.com

—Ann Marie Byrd

Orchard House

“An old maid, that’s what I’m to be. A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and twenty years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps…” —Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), is a 40 minute train ride from Boston’s North Station and – lace up your walking shoes – a 35 minute walk from the Concord (my conductor called it KHAN-kid) Station, through the town, and out Lexington Road. I felt so pleased about my hike that I later asked our tour guide if Louisa ever walked to town. Lord love a duck, she’d walk to Boston and back, a ten-hour round trip. Always athletic, Louisa once confided to her diary: “No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race, and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences, and be a tomboy.”

Little Women (1868), Louisa’s beloved classic, is set in Orchard House, so a visit is like paying a call on the March family. The Alcotts owned eighty percent of the furnishings on display. There’s the piano Marmee played in the parlor (pictured right), where guests sat as the girls performed Monday evening dramas, songs and dances in the adjacent dining room. Meg and John married in the parlor, where sunlight spills through the windows.

Tour Guide Christine Spinelli hastily differentiated reality from fiction. While Louisa based Little Women on her sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy were really Anna, Louisa, Lizzy, and May. That takes a bit of adjusting as our guide spoke of Anna (Meg) getting married in the parlor and May’s (Amy’s) drawing ability. Lizzy (Beth) never lived in Orchard House, having died three months before the move.

Bronson Alcott, unlike Mr. March, never served in the Civil War. He was a teacher and a leading transcendentalist who believed in the goodness of man, the power of intuition, and the spiritual strength of nature. His instruction of unorthodox ideas made the Alcotts itinerants; they moved twenty-two times in nearly thirty years. Bronson’s purchase of Orchard House in 1857, followed by a yearlong restoration, offered some stability. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, residents of Concord, embraced them and visited often.

Louisa keenly felt the burden of childhood poverty. At 15 she wrote: “I will do something by and by.  Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!” Writing became her vehicle for success from a young age.  Her poetry and short stories appeared in popular magazines, followed by book publications.

Bronson encouraged his daughters to keep daily journals and, if desired, share their thoughts around the dining room table. Family conversations tended to focus on abolitionism, social reform and women’s suffrage. Bronson wanted a household of vegetarians who ate fruit and vegetables from the property but Marmee insisted on meat occasionally.

For Louisa, a prolific writer, Bronson built a half-moon desk in her bedroom. May painted a panel of calla lilies on the wall facing the desk and a baby owl on the fireplace. Louisa wrote twelve to sixteen hours daily; she wrote so much that she trained herself to be ambidextrous.

(Above) Louisa’s Bedroom with Bronson’s half-moon desk on the left and May’s calla lilies running up the wall next to it. May’s painted baby owl perches above the fireplace.

She penned Little Women in 1868 at the request of her Boston publisher, Thomas Niles, who asked that she write “a book for girls.” She wasn’t enthusiastic about the assignment. Little Women appeared in two parts, but after the first part was printed, letters poured in, begging her to have Jo marry Laurie. Her publisher added to the pressure and Louisa, ever the women’s rights activist, bristled: “As if that was the only end and aim of a woman’s life.” She compromised by having Jo marry the stolid and scholarly Professor Bhaer. Laurie married Amy, the youngest March sister.

With the success of Little Women, Louisa bought a kitchen sink and furnace for the family home. Those who read my Cross Creek blog, may recall that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s first literary earnings went toward indoor plumbing. A pattern may be emerging that suggests the practicality of female authors.

Louisa wasn’t the only breadwinner in the household. Her earnings allowed May (Amy) to study art in Paris. May’s sketches of mythological characters, especially women with their children, and biblical characters are visible on the walls of Orchard House, now preserved under plexiglass. Bronson encouraged her to draw, and if paper were unavailable, there were always walls. May’s bedroom, where most of the drawings appear, is a bright and airy addition, provided by Bronson especially for his artistic daughter. It’s a long, high room that was perfect for May, who stood 5’11”. May’s enduring legacy lies in the fact that she gave Daniel Chester French his first art and sculpture lessons. French went on to design the solemn Abraham Lincoln statue that sits in the Lincoln Memorial. To commemorate May, French used some of the first plastering tools she ever gave him on this piece.

Anna (Meg) married John Pratt (not Brooke) in the sunlit parlor. Family members rushed to deliver invitations one hour before the ceremony while Louisa decorated the room. Anna refused to wear a white dress, deciding that a gray one would be more practical for future housework. Emerson asked for and received permission to kiss the bride. Louisa, thunderstruck – for she had a mad crush on him – pondered whether a kiss from her idol might make marriage worthwhile. Anna and John remained married until John’s death ten years later. Louisa knew her widowed sister, now the mother of two, would have a difficult time financially. She wrote Little Men (1871), directing the royalties to Anna.

The Alcotts are buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. I walked through the graveyard to Authors Ridge, the resting place among the pines for the Alcott Family, Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Previous visitors had left flowers and fountain pens at her grave. Behind it stands a white marble marker with her name on it, along with a circular sign indicating she was a veteran. Louisa served in Washington, D.C., as a Union nurse in the Civil War. Like many nurses, she came down with typhoid pneumonia. The treatment involved calomel (mercury chloride) and resulted in Louisa developing mercury poisoning. She returned home to recover and write her most famous work and more. Louisa died at the age of 55 on March 6, 1888, two days after her father’s death.

Our Tour Guide, Christine, noted that some women wait their whole lives to visit this simple structure. I understand that because I read Little Women the first time of many times the summer I turned nine, then I moved on to watch the sisters grow up in Little Men and Jo’s Boys. I’ve seen the different film versions of the Little Women (1933, 1949, 1994). Quite simply, the March sisters are among my oldest friends. My visit to Orchard House felt like a sacred pilgrimage and, in those rooms, I swear I heard echoes of the girls’ laughter.

Orchard House is celebrating its Centennial this year by offering events such as living history tours with the March Sisters, concerts, a play, and art competition. A blowout Centennial Celebration for families is scheduled for May 26-28, 2012. The Summer Conversational Series & Teacher Institute will hold “Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House Centennial: Legacy of a Powerful Voice” July 15-20, 2012.

For more information about Orchard House: http://www.louisamayalcott.org
Special Centennial Events: http://www.louisamayalcott.org/SpecialEvents2012.html

Use of interior photos authorized by Orchard House Executive Director Jan Turnquist

—Ann Marie Byrd

The House of the Seven Gables

Half-way down a by-street of one of our New England towns, stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. —Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

Boston, Massachusetts, hosts the Annual Conference of the AWP (American Writers & Writing Programs) next March 2013. It’s the premier gathering of authors, teachers, and publishers – over 10,000 attendees – in the country. Boston offers plenty to see and experience, and my next couple of blogs will focus on literary day trips from that hub.

The House of the Seven Gables, known as the Turner-Ingersoll House, is an easy 30-minute train ride from North Station. Debarkation at the Salem Station and a 20-minute walk brings you to this glorious harbor house that’s significant in American culture for architecture, literature, and social reform.

The property, designated a National Historic Landmark District, serves as a magnet for Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) enthusiasts. In close proximity to the Gables House, are the Nathaniel Hawthorne House, the Retire Beckett House (Gift Shop), the Hooper-Hathaway House, and the miniature Counting House, which offers kid-friendly activities.

Hawthorne’s cousin Susanna Ingersoll owned the house in the early 1800s, and Hawthorne visited often. Listening to Susanna’s stories about the residence’s history inspired him to write The House of the Seven Gables. Ironically, Hawthorne never saw its seven gables because, in modernizing the Postmedieval structure to the Federal style, earlier renovations had reduced the number to three.  With the addition of those missing four gables about one-hundred years ago, this house may be the only one in the country restored with the intent to recreate a fictional dwelling described by an important author.

Although the house in Hawthorne’s Gables loomed sinister and decaying, my visit occurred on a warm and sunny day; the nearby sea was calm, and seagulls swooped overhead. The only way to see the house is on a tour, so while you wait, visit the museum shop or enjoy a stroll through the seaside Colonial Revival gardens while you contemplate Hawthorne’s historical themes as presented in the novel: the historical past informs our actions.

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