Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town

From the time I was four (1961), Cape Ann (Massachusett's "other cape") has been my second home. My parents would take a house in Rockport for the month of August, and my mother, brother, and I would stay there while my father worked in New York City and come up for weekends. This tradition has continued to the present day, only now we stay at the Emerson Inn and the family has expanded to include my wife, Jen, and our two daughters.These annual visits were spent on the usual pursuits -- days at the beach, roaming up and down Bearskin Neck while gobbling penny candy from the Country Store, day trips to Boston (on the rainy days), and hours spent deciding which restaurant to dine at that evening.Every five years or so, someone would suggest a trip to Dogtown Commons -- but on most of these occasions, we'd end up finding something else to do. A few times we did traipse along the vanishing trails in search of the cellar holes and Babson's inspirational rocks, but for some unspoken reason it was never fun to be in Dogtown. I still have a few of my father's slides of my brother and I perched high up on the Whale's Jaw (before it was split by a fire), but we much preferred clambering over the rocks at the Headlands or at Andrew's Point.All of which serves to explain why, when a few months ago while cruising Amazon I came across Elyssa East's upcoming title, DOGTOWN: Death & Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, I immediately ordered it.DOGTOWN is one of those rare jewels -- a fascinating narrative history that never bogs down in either the minutiae of the past or the details of the contemporary. Alyssa East's prose is clear and direct, yet it also effectively conveys the essential "otherness" that permeates Dogtown Commons.East provides a fascinating overview of the history of Cape Ann -- and her narrative of Peter Hodgkins' murder of Anne Natti and his subsequent trial offers a gripping contemporary counterpoint.Yet the star of the book is, of course, Dogtown Commons itself. East's story of arriving in Gloucester for the first time and finding it almost impossible to locate anyone to tell her much of anything about Dogtown is fascinating. Her perseverance in her quest is just as compelling in that she eventually locates a number of locals who do share their Dogtown stories and opinions -- yet no one can really pinpoint why Dogtown has always inspired uneasy feelings.Elyssa East tracks down -- and eventually proves false -- many of the stories purporting to explain Dogtown's reputation. There were in fact no Indian massacres in Dogtown -- the pirates who scoured the seas from Gloucester to Newfoundland did not elude the authorities by living in Dogtown -- and the witches reputed to make their homes there were simply poor and perhaps mentally-ill unfortunates, unable to cope with living in the communities lining the Cape Ann shores.The odd (and might I say, spiritually oppressive) atmosphere that hangs over Dogtown cannot, in the end, be attributed to any such past events. East finally arrives at the word "creepy" to describe it -- and frankly, there is no more fitting word. Her conversation with local artist Shep Abbott (aka "Mr. Dogtown") provides the most accurate description of Dogtown. Despite his fascination with the area, Abbott finally renders his considered judgment: "Dogtown is bad."Elyssa East is a truly fine writer -- in all senses of the word. I look forward to following her career and upcoming books -- and I hope that she includes fiction in her future writing.A quick note to the Amazon reviewers who felt that a photo insert was called for: aside from the fact that many publishing houses try to discourage photo inserts for reasons of expense and additional production time, I cannot imagine that any photos of Dogtown would be able to effectively convey its essentially bleak spirit. Photos, either in b&w or color, would simply show some rather pleasant meadows and copses of trees. A reader who hasn't visited the place would most likely be puzzled to see a collection of mundane nature shots and might wonder at what all the fuss is about. Trust me, it is a "creepy place" that can really only be experienced by visiting it.

I've lived in Gloucester for close to twenty years now and I haven't spent hardly any time in Dogtown. Once, when I first moved here, I went on a walking tour of Dogtown to see the famous Babson Boulders and my friend Carolyn O'Connor has taken me up to Babson Reservoir to show me the ones near there. A few years back I spent a week sequestered alone in the woods at Walker Hancock's studio while I wrote the final draft of  The Old Mermaid's Tale . But, to a large extent, Dogtown is as much a mystery to me as it is to a lot of folks who live here. For that reason I was eager to read Elyssa East's Dogtown: Death & Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town. It's a good read.Ms East came to her fascination with Dogtown through an unusual way, she became enchanted by Marsden Hartley's paintings of Dogtown. The paintings are harsh, stark and monolithically mesmerizing and it would have been nice if there had been reproductions of them in the book, along with a map or two of Dogtown. In fact, if I have a complaint about the book it is that it would have benefited greatly from illustrations and photographs. I live here so I know what much of what she talks about looks like but I can't quite imagine how people in other parts of the country envision it. But then again, maybe not.East weaves a tale composed of equal parts folklore and fact. Fact here tends to be murky at times since Dogtown's founding close to 400 years ago leaves few records and much of what passe for history is really speculation, legend, or "facts" recorded 150 years ago - which was 200 years after they happened. Following her fascination with the Hartley paintings, East came to Gloucester and spent time with some of our more colorful characters. As I was reading I tried to imagine how her descriptions of people I know would sound to people elsewhere. As previously mentioned Carolyn is a friend, so is Peter Anastas. I know Shep Abbott and Bob Ritchie and I've met Ted Tarr, Isabel Natti and Joe Orange so seeing them as characters in a book is interesting enough. Especially since some of them seemed like characters in a book even before they were.Ms East writes beautifully. Her prose is luxurious and well-crafted and she has a breadth of knowledge that lends itself well to the subject. The book is composed of alternating chapters, those recounting the history and mystery of Dogtown, and those detailing the story of the 1984 murder of Anne Natti in Dogtown. Her chapters on the history and her explorations with guides including Shep and Ted Tarr are beautifully written and I was captivated by her vision. The chapters on the murder bogged down with more detail than I thought was needed but I'm the first to admit I don't read a lot of true crime. People who do will probably find all the details of the trial and the events leading up to it quite fascinating.Her chapter on the late poet Charles Olsen is one of her best. Though Olsen died long before I came here I did know Vincent Ferrini and, though I had a hard time recognizing him through her description, when Vincent recited his own poetry he was the powerful, thundering, passionate giant she describes and that is a good way for him to be introduced to the rest of the country.I liked Dogtown: Death & Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town. I love the title and it is appropriately mysterious and fascinating. I don't know if Ms East really captured the spirit of Dogtown but she did create a mythic narrative that is bound to fascinate readers whether or not they know our corner of the world. Gloucester has a mystique that is hard to convey but writers keep trying and rightly so. It's something in the smell of the air and the quality of light bouncing off the water that surrounds us - and in the ghostly shadows that lurk in the nooks and crannies of this island.