Sydney Lea’s NOW LOOK is a beautifully written, introspective roundup of lives emanating from the central relationship between George Mayes, a Yale-educated, sometime visitor to northern Maine and the mentor he meets there, Evan Butcher. The structure of the novel is web-like, meaning the many characters whose lives intersect the two main characters have their say, in chapters and voices of their own. The action occurs in multiple locales, but the northern Maine landscape and culture where the two meet yearly are eulogized and preserved, in lovingly exact language.
Lea wonderfully captures the colorful language and ways of speaking in the area.
The urge toward story is strong; as George says, he has “always longed to make his life a coherent narrative.” But the action is episodic and slow to materialize, much as life is. All in all, the novel is a painful retrospective, of lives sabotaged by alcohol and chance, lives overlaid with failure, early promise come to naught, a melancholy mix of love, beauty and human striving.

With thanks to NetGalley and Down East Books for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest