‘Preacher’ characters odd, lovable> Fictitious Maine town no place to vacation

PREACHER’S LAKE, by Lisa Vice, Dutton-The Penguin Group, New York, 472 pages, hardcover, $27.95.

You won’t find Preacher’s Lake in the DeLorme Maine Atlas and Gazetteer. And that’s no loss, according to the idiosyncratic characters in Lisa Vice’s novel, “Preacher’s Lake.”

It may be a coastal Maine town, but Preacher’s Lake “had an atmosphere of a place not open to the sea, but rather walled in, sunken down, nearly swallowed by storms and winds and the harsh day-to-day effort to make a living out of clay, rock, and bloodworms twelve cents apiece.”

The preacherless church with its boarded-up windows is an apt metaphor for this graceless place. Yet the common denominator among the oddball townsfolk is their quest for love. You can close the cover now believing you’ve latched onto a morbidly depressing book. But hold on and travel to Preacher’s Lake with a collection of colorful characters you won’t soon forget.

In the style of Anne Tyler, Vice deftly pieces her tale together through characters’ voices that become more familiar with each turn of the page. Reading this book is like breathing, interspersed with predictable pauses. Vice gracefully exits each scene as if she’s softly closing a door. She masterfully leaves one thread only to pick up another, often on the same page. She beckons the reader to continue through these minichapters and to relish her rich descriptions, the charcteristics of the people she has created.

The cast includes Janesta, a woman on welfare who steals tips and toilet paper; Rita, whose biracial daughter causes tongues to wag when she blows in from away; Trudy, the town’s hypochondriac who frequents the health clinic staffed by equally quirky personnel, including a woman who won’t let you forget she is a lesbian. In fact, Vice expertly delves into her lesbian characters’ psyche throughout the story.

In another substory Vice spins, Slim the junkyard man meets and marries the spicy Janesta, despite warnings of the men in town who say she is no good — that she chews men up and spits them out. Slim winds up enduring all the abuse and disdain his wife can summon. But the resilient Slim becomes fast friends with Janesta’s daughter Crystal, who insists on watching “The Wizard of Oz” — every day. Once Janesta gives birth to baby James, she refuses to bond with him. One morning, feeling trapped in the tin can of a trailer she lives in — which is lined with loot salvaged from the dump — Janesta packs a bag, feigns a trip to get pizza and leaves Slim, Crystal and James for good.

Another relationship blossoms after a rocky start as Carol and Rita grow to love each other. The turning point for them occurs naturally, lovingly. The author depicts an exquisitely sensual scene in which the two make love. “You just get used to the way you are. You realize you’re not going to change all that much, so you try to love yourself anyway,” Carol, a New York City artist said. “Besides, maybe it gets easier if you let someone love you.”

Despite the story’s expansive list of characters, Preacher’s Lake still lacks a preacher, until the young minister Joe finds his way to the ailing town, making it easy for the residents — of all religious and sexual persuasions — to embrace him and the church. Worship sessions are more like town meetings, where all are welcome to speak their minds — even J.T., the clinic worker, who calls for a prayer for the lesbians. In his sermon, Joe speaks to the heart of his congregation. “… I understand how much we want to love. And how hard it is for us to love each other.”

Then, as if on cue, the clouds part as a rainbow heralds a new beginning for the town. The book is so well constructed, I can forgive the author for this rather contrived scene near the conclusion.