‘Fake Man’ a lively tale

FOLLOWING FAKE MAN, by Barbara Ware Holmes, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2001, 226 pages, $15.95.

One suspects there must be many writers of young adult fiction losing sleep over the mammoth ongoing popularity of the Harry Potter books. Ms. Rowling cannot bring out a book every month (although with the movie and various spin-offs it may feel like Potter is everywhere you turn), which presents a window, as it were, of opportunity for those writers spinning more traditional tales.

Author Barbara Ware Holmes, who divides her time between New Jersey and Maine, has taken advantage of the present lull to publish “Following Fake Man,” a “middle-grade” suspense tale that has the flavor of a Hardy Boys mystery. Old-fashioned is the adjective that comes to mind.

When we first meet Homer Winthrop, he is crossing the bridge into Maine with his mother and the housekeeper, Madeleine. He has decided not to talk all the way to their vacation destination, Herring Cove, a peninsular town that resembles Port Clyde. He is a confused young man, whose father, a neurologist, died of a neurological disease when he was two. “A sad irony,” remarks Homer’s mother, Dr. Winthrop, a linguist, who is incommunicative much of the time, especially when it comes to talking about her husband.

Homer’s vow of silence is broken as they cross the bridge and he tries various pronunciations of the word “Piscataqua.” There seems to be something liberating about Maine. “The very air looked different,” the boy thinks to himself, “if air could look.” Madeleine, who is given several chapters of her own, feels the change too. “The glory of Maine, that was what done it,” she muses. “Made us search in our inner selves for something grand that could match the sky.”

It doesn’t take long for Homer to explore the town and hook up with a local boy, Roger Sweeney, who has been following – and harassing – a man who has been acting suspicious. Homer and Roger become fast friends and begin their sleuthing to uncover the secret of the “Fake Man.” When it turns out Dr. Winthrop knows the mystery man, the plot starts to take some interesting twists.

Roger is also given his own chapters, which consist of entries from a journal he keeps, complete with collage cutouts of Elvis and rubber ducky. These silly visual interludes will no doubt please the heck out of young readers.

Homer is the most developed character. He resembles his mother in his attention to speech (when Madeleine pronounces “apology” “apol-er-gee,” he wonders, “What was that? Some kind of spacecraft?”). In his artistic talents he takes after his Dad, who was a promising painter when he wasn’t studying the brain. He can be philosophical in a winning way, as when he notes that a “useful map would show you the mysteries inside of houses and the secrets inside of heads. It would show you the people who’d lived in a place before you and the ones who were going to come after- sort of give you a bigger picture, so you could figure out how you fit.” Sounds like the kind of map Harry Potter would possess.

Holmes draws on local color in her narrative. There is a trip to nearby Rockland where Homer remarks upon all the galleries along Main Street. A reference to Nellie, the lighthouse dog, star of Jane Scarpino’s and Robert Ensor’s children’s book set at the Marshall Point Light, is woven in. Ware also offers a thinly disguised portrait of Jamie Wyeth, who paints in a cardboard shelter in order to block out nosy onlookers. Monhegan becomes Owl Island with its well-known landmark, the Trailing Yew.

“Following Fake Man” is the kind of book kids gobble up in no time flat, between courses of Hogwarts and Quidditch. Bon appetit!