Summer tale a flat mishmash

PATH THROUGH DEEP WATERS, by Betsy Alexander, Windswept House, Mount Desert, 1998, 349 pages, paperback, $10.

Books by and about women historically are not valued as highly as those written by and about men, so I’m forever searching for new woman-written books. I was initially thrilled to review “Path Through Deep Waters,” by Betsy Alexander. Unfortunately, the book’s fatal flaw is its failure to engage the reader.

Alexander tells of a Florida college student’s dual quest to slough off her recent breakup with her boyfriend and to gather insight into her college studies in gerontology. Through a dizzying array of abrupt point-of-view shifts, including passages that read like stage directions in a drama, the author throws herself into telling — rather than showing — Julie Alden’s story of a summer spent on a Maine island. That style renders the tale flat and not credible.

In many ways, this story reminded me of “The Wizard of Oz,” where a misunderstood Dorothy runs away from home. Like Dorothy, Julie’s foray in a foreign place is brief. Both Julie and Dorothy meet a cast of characters along their journeys — one to the Emerald City, the other to the fictitious Maine island town of Greenton.

Yet, while Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion are well developed enough for readers or viewers to care what happens to them, Alexander misses myriad opportunities to do the same for the stereotyped island residents whom Julie meets. The story sorely lacks dialogue between the characters. I was frustrated, feeling that the author chose to recite lists of events rather than create scenes in which the reader can become involved. Even when Julie meets Chuck Gardiner, who proposes marriage and gives her his grandmother’s engagement ring, the reader is unceremoniously left to conjure images of the young lovers’ courtship, without benefit of knowing who they are.

Events — without details — occur almost at the speed of light. Julie pointedly reminds readers that she is “just a summer person,” which is belied by the fact that she develops a series of “close” personal relationships with several islanders. She has promised herself to so many people that she wonders how she will manage. “I told [Ruth] I’d play nurse; I’ve promised Mag to come to her, and volunteered to be part of the Hospice Group if possible; and now I’ve told Rob I’ll help in any way possible when Kathleen comes home [from the hospital].”

Meanwhile, Julie overcomes her fear of boating after a single sail. The author should have realized that, like summer, her book is brief, and rather than cramming as much into it as possible, she should have let her readers savor a selection of memorable vignettes.

In perhaps the most troubling aspect of this book, the author fails to invoke her own strengths. In a few cases, though, Alexander shows what a good writer she can be. She writes about one hot summer evening: “Julie drank in the coolness that seemed to breathe on her ankles from the grass and rise about her.”

A book written from Julie’s point of view — even a reading from the journal she kept during her island adventure — would have been more credible than the mishmash that evolved from trying too hard to write a book about Maine.