Outermark

by Jason Brown

“A masterful work, catapulting the reader through the intricate history of Outermark with a sense of immersion that is rare in contemporary fiction. Full of quiet grace, breathtaking moments of violence, splendor, and all manners of beauty, this novel is an indelible achievement—and not to be missed.”
—Nathan Harris, author of The Sweetness of Water

Outermark is a haunting and bittersweet story about the power of the places that shape us from Jason Brown, winner of the Maine Book Award, “a pure and accomplished talent” (New York Times).

The tiny, fictional island of Outermark sits thirty miles off the coast in the waters between Maine and Nova Scotia. When Corson Wills, one of the last people to have lived on the island, is asked to recount its history, he begins by describing it as "a rock in the ocean where no one lives anymore.” Corson’s tale, and those of his ancestors who also lived there, ferry the reader between the 1980s, when lobster fishing is the only remaining industry, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, days of great sailing ships to the East Indies but also of conflicts between the earliest Native residents and newly arrived colonial settlers.

During Corson’s boyhood, life on the island becomes increasingly tenuous as the lobster stocks decline and debt and hard feelings abound. Some of the islanders have started to run drugs, and many others have abandoned their homes to move to the mainland. Tensions between neighbors reach a tipping point the night of a catastrophic house fire. Residents of Outermark suffer the loss of livelihood and community that many in small towns have experienced in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As the stories in Outermark reveal, as impossible as life was on the island, life off of it never feels quite right for those who had no choice but to leave it behind.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2024

Reviews

[abbey rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

a sweet story but it took me awhile to get through and awhile to get into. i loved the maine imagery and the characters felt real and well thought out. shoutout ava for the book!! 😌🫶

[Nicholas (was Allison) · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.35 Stars
Notes: I could properly understand this book, when I could find a copy of it. I previously had no knowledge of this story, until a few weeks ago.

I read the novel for what it was itself. Primarily, I technically would only ever advise on reading this book if someone feels okay enough to. There are amounts of emotional drama between several characters.

Due to that, I am not really including many spoilers. This book has several plot lines, which kept me reading through the novel. However - an emotional tolerance is immediately required.

From having to read through books for several years that were not well-known at all, I could understand the writing style in this novel. Sometimes, some chapters can be skimmed and others have to be read through.

I am again adding in a trigger warning, to avoid this book entirely, if someone cannot tolerate darker emotional content. I have minimal to no tolerance from this, because I had to read through so many novels for years and years, that this book would never really have affected me much.

I am shortening this review, due to the fact of having to find certain types of darker horror novels.

I would only advise other readers to go through several chapters of this book, if they can tolerate darker emotionally mature content. Or else - this novel is literally not going to be completed entirely. That is my one warning.

[Jtufts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple story told in a complex way, weaving together the experiences of the inhabitants of a small fictional island off the coast of Maine over the course of centuries. The book feels more like a concept album or a collection of tightly-linked short stories than a novel - reminiscent of Ben Shattuck’s “The History of Sound” - with the majority of the narrative circling a critical series of events in the island’s history from several perspectives, revealing more with each iteration. Ultimately it is the quality of the writing that stands out, as Brown displays a mastery of language, cutting and pithy observations of human behavior, and above all a too-often-elusive legitimacy in the way he gives life to the Mainers who inhabit Outermark.

[Janet Self · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to read this and finally gave up about half way through. The book was billed as an immersion in the community of a now-ghost island off the coast of Maine. The problem is that it's an immersion into the grim. I wish I'd read the Wall Street Journal review first. "Brown traces an engrossing, circuitous tale of resentments and desperate misunderstandings that lead to a terrible revenge killing." But I don't find any of these to be engrossing. And now I'm free of it.

[Erik Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this book for Christmas and didn't know what it was, but loved it! I had trouble with first 20 pages or so but then it is fascinating - beautifully written characters, a 300 +/- year history viewed through a dozen or so of the islander's lives/tales - of an island that apparently doesn't exist, btwn ME and Canada, but feels very real.

[Donna M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linked stories about a family that lived on a (fictional) island off the coast of Maine.

[Beth Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful tender tale of lives intertwined on the hardscrabble coast of Maine

[Kartika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid good read. I enjoyed some chapters more than others.

[Trina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a touching story of the dying away of the life on an old maritime island off the coast of Maine. The profound way that place makes one’s life.

[Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a strange novel, read a review in WSJ, had Sea Howl order for me, from tiny publisher - Paul Dry Books. The book is almost a set of interconnected short stories - another one on a small island, this time off the coast of Maine.

The stories skip around in time from the present 2022 back through the 70's and 80's and several chapters that take us back to the 1700 and 1800 to learn the story of people coming from Europe who originally populated the island. In current times poverty, violence, homelessness. Rough life for rough people.

The narrator is an old man at this point who lived most of his life off island as a librarian. These are his recollections of the island life of his childhood.

Not particularly memorable. But this is my 3rd book with the theme of life on an island separated from the modern times.