“WINDSWEPT,” by Mary Ellen Chase, originally published in 1941 by The MacMillan Co., re-issued by Islandport Press of Yarmouth, Maine, 2006, $15.95.

“Windswept” is a truly sweeping Maine novel by Mary Ellen Chase spanning the years from 1881 to 1939. A beautiful, even monumental book in its own right, this book – reissued by Islandport Press late last year – has the fascinating history of being a wartime best-seller upon its first publication in 1941.

This seems odd, because “Windswept” took time to grow on me. The writing is leisurely, even slow. We are told what is happening, more than shown it – breaking the contemporary writer’s rule of the trade. And still, by the last third of the book I found myself moving into low gear. I didn’t want this calm book about unusually wise and kind people to end.

Chase grew up in Blue Hill in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but went on to spend most of her life away from Maine, as a literature professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. She based several of her novels in Maine, as well as, naturally, a few of her memoirs. Recently, Islandport Press has been re-releasing her Maine novels. “Windswept” is considered the last in a trilogy of Maine novels, the earlier ones being “Silas Crockett” and “Mary Peters.”

Though “Windswept” begins and ends with the advent of World War II, it is not about war, nor even the changes that brought about the war. The story follows several families, principally the descendants of Philip Marston, the son of a Kennebec ship master who left Maine for New York City, and a pair of Bohemian immigrants Marston befriended, along with some coastal Mainers. As one generation ebbs into another, the novel’s language takes on depth and meaning. One message is clear: Friendship and place matter. With that, continuity prevails.

The thrust of the book begins on a sailing trip along the Maine coast, when Marston connects to the barren wildness of the land above a small, particularly remote Down East harbor beyond Schoodic. This place, writes Chase, is among “those trackless stretches over which the darkness settled more heavily and the dawn came more quickly, those tumbling, uneven pastures, those ragged wastes which faced the open sea, those rocky coves of deep swirling waters into which one edged warily with the knowledge of the full force of the Atlantic behind one’s back.”

With Marston when he purchases this barren land and sketches a plan for the house are his adolescent son John; Jan, one of the two Czech immigrants; and a Maine carpenter, Caleb Perkins. Tragedy ensues, but the home, itself called Windswept, is built. Central to it is a fireplace fashioned with stairs so that people can easily congregate on the stone hearth steps. Like the fireplace, the home that stands above the stony barrens and coastal waters becomes the heart of a widening circle of relatives and friends.

And yet, as if a claw were raking through the families, randomly sweeping people off the playing field, significant numbers of these individuals die before their time. This, too, is central to Chase’s novel. Her perspective is so large that one has the sense of being in some godlike position floating above life and landscape, watching people come and go with a certain amount of equanimity, knowing that life continues on, regardless.

Major changes happen. This once-remote place, best accessible by boat, eventually becomes just a matter of minutes by car from a major town. World War I happens. Then World War II. Still cranberries need harvesting and those who live at Windswept know that a windy day will help to winnow the harvest. What matters is time and nature: In a life well-lived, the cycle of seasons is known and noticed.

This perspective, and the sweet melancholy associated with the underlying belief that life does go on, no matter what, must have been a deep comfort during the tragic years of World War II. The inclusion of immigrants who have made a life for themselves on U.S. soil – especially ones from the Czech Republic – may have sealed the public’s connection to “Windswept.”

The modern reader might become impatient with Chase’s remote description of her characters’ thoughts and their seemingly innate nobility – especially those associated with the soils of New England or Europe. But I found myself mesmerized into Chase’s pace, believing in the compassion that leads Jan to spend hours polishing the shoes of his deceased friend so that they would shine beneath the coffin well into the hereafter. As a reader, I wanted to remain within Chase’s vision that ultimately makes “Windswept” – both house and land – the central character of the novel. Underlying her words is a belief that the turbulent storms and endless winters of the Maine coast are themselves proof that humanity, and Earth itself, abides, no matter what tragedy – World War I, World War II, modern life – befalls it.

Donna Gold is a writer living in Stockton Springs who is public relations director at College of the Atlantic. She also helps families and communities record their stories through Personal History: www.personal

history.org.