Hull Creek: A Novel of the Maine Coast

by Jim Nichols

After the death of his parents, Troy Hull left college to take on his family's traditional lobster-fishing life. But after a few good years, he finds himself threatened with the loss of that life, a result of some bad choices and the changing nature of his hometown. Troy's best friend, also a lobster fisherman, has found his own shady methods to deal with a similar situation, and now Troy must decide whether to follow his pal's outlaw path to solvency or let the straight-and-narrow take him from his beloved home forever. Throw in a run-away wife, a wicked city woman, a wild melee where a big-shot TV host and crew get tossed into the chilly harbor, and a drug deal gone bad, and you have Hull a timely and rowdy story of the Maine coast.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2011

About the author

Winner of 2021 Maine Book Award for Fiction! Life-long Maine kid until October 2020, when we moved to Santa Fe...planning to split time in Maine. Winner of 2016 Maine Book Award for Fiction. Runner-up in 2012. Work published in Esquire, elimae, Portland Monthly, Zoetrope ASE, Narrative, River City, American Fiction, Clackamas Review, paris transcontinental, others...winner of Kurt Johnson Prize for Fiction (2014) and Willamette Fiction Award (2000), collection Slow Monkeys and Other Stories (2003), novel Hull Creek (2011), novel-in-stories Closer All The Time (2015) and my latest: Blue Summer (2020).

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book lives up to its title. It really is a novel about the Maine coast, specifically the mid-Maine coast in and near a fictionalized Camden and the waters of western Penobscot Bay. It's a good and sometimes funny read.

The struggles of a young lobsterman, Troy Hull, to keep his family home and way of life in a town increasingly overrun by people from away ring true. Some of the bad guys in this story seem a bit over the top, but that is part of the pleasure of reading "Hull Creek."

While it's very much about Troy's life and his friends and family, it's also about a place: his home on a tidal creek leading to the harbor. You can feel the sun on your face and see the osprey and cormorants diving as Jim Nichols describes Troy sitting on his porch, beer in hand, trying to sort out what to do next. The harbor and the bay are also deftly drawn.

The author lives near the people and places he describes, and it shows.

[Paula Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I know Troy Hull. Maybe I went to high school with him. Maybe I grew up near his family in mid-Coast Maine. Maine author, Jim Nichols, makes his characters and his settings so comfortable and familiar to Maine readers. I loved knowing the general area and places he writes about and was right there with him on the many trips out on the ocean hauling lobsters. Unfortunately, Troy's situation about being forced to sell his home and land to out-of-staters is much too common. Lobstering is a fickle profession, and Troy's last few years were uncharacteristically scarce. Not being able to make his mortgage or boat payment makes him desperate for other ways to make ends meet. His friend, Polky, has a few ideas, but they're not ideas Troy wants to get involved in. But what's a guy to do? Gotta pay the bills somehow or surrender to those 'swanks' from out of state.

[Gia Pilgrim Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the pacing of the writing was excellent! I loved the descriptions of Troy’s day to day consciousness, it feels very authentic. I thought perhaps the “summer swanks” were a bit too villainous. Would like to see a bit more complexity from that. Otherwise this was a great page turner!

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Troy Hull has had some bad events in his life. His awesome homestead left to him has a lot of bills and the crooked bill collectors are at his heels! He takes a lot of risks, but is straightening out.

[Sammi Swanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Similar to other reviews, Troy Hull feels extremely familiar to me. But a perspective I have not often seen portrayed. Did not expect to love this as much as I did.

[Genevieve Morgan]

I'm a huge fan of Nichols's writing. He manages that great artistic feat of being spare but evocative simultaneously. His characters breathe and ache and twitch and yearn with heartbreaking realism. A master.

[Frosty61 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is a good one as Troy Hull struggles to make a living lobstering in a changing economy. He's tempted to go down the 'quick money' path with his shady buddy, Polky, in order to save his family land and home from dishonest developers and bankers. There's no pat solution to his problems, but compromise and love help see him through. My biggest complaint about the book is the stereotypical characterization of the tourists who 'invade' Troy's small town. Maine needs the tourism income, yet many Mainers treat them with disdain and disgust. Sure, some of the tourists are snobbish, dumb, and arrogant - but not all. This story just perpetuates that viewpoint. Of course, Troy's problems aren't just due to invasive tourism, but are also due to environmental factors, fishing laws make by people from away, and plain crummy luck. I guess the author decided the tourists are the main evil here.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hull Creek" is the story of Troy Hull. He is a troubled man, trying to keep his lobster fishing career going, and facing foreclosure on the mortgage of his house in Maine. He loves his hometown and how he earns his living, but the money just isn't coming in anymore. He faces temptation from several different directions as he tries to straighten out the mess that his life has become. Will he join an acquaintance in an illegal venture for ill-gotten gains, or will he choose to do the right thing, while risking everything he has left? A suspenseful novel about a likeable fellow the working class can certainly relate to!

[Melissa Acuna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding novel. Hull Creek is the story of Troy Hull, a fisherman who is trying to hold onto a way of life that is not so much dying out, as it is being stolen away.
It's a smart, honest story set in the mid-coast of Maine in a fictional village which may or may not be Rockport. Big money moves into the picturesque town and slowly turns the harbor from a working waterfront to a quaint tourist destination with more sailboats than fishing boats.
I highly recommend this to any one who wants to better understand coastal Maine.

[Megowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am really liking this book, but setting it aside as it's a little too much for a post oral surgery procedure day. I need something a little lighter and I'll get back to this. I like the characters, and can recognize places in Maine where this story could be taking place.

A great story, with believable characters. A little spoofing of "swags", but a pretty good portrayal of the changes of the Maine economy. I have seen those great big houses, that sit empty most of the year...and wonder where all the real citizens live. Makes one think.

[Avital · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world wears different colors when Jim Nichols tells about it. He takes the readers into Troy Hull's life with such precision of dialogue and action, and such empathy, you get completely involved with the character. The urbanization of Maine brings poverty and sadness to fishermen or lobster men like him. He struggles with his own sorrows of love and loss, and protects his old world with certain desperation. There's authenticity in the descriptions and the place comes alive. Highly recommended!

[Siobhan]

Very good novel about a lobster fisherman on the Maine coast facing the profound changes in today's economic and social climate. Trying to hang on to a home where six generations of his family have fished and lived for many decades, Troy Hull gets in over his head on a new "business" venture. This author has a tremendous ear for dialogue and a way of bringing his characters to life that makes this book very readable.

[Lisa Lieberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a tender story! Jim Nichols writes about coming to terms with loss and change without getting all sentimental, and yet he leaves us moved. A clear-eyed observer of his beloved coastal Maine, he lets us see the place like a native. Along the way, we get to know the locals, warts and all, and have the pleasure of watching a few members of the yacht-owning class get their comeuppance.

[Steven Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Due to my dyslexia, Jim's witing style took me a few pages to warn up too, but then it started to move along nicely. It has a strong story which is belivable and not over done. I think it would help readers to have a basic knowledge of lobstering and the mid-coast area, as Jim does not spend a lot of time explaining things. But then what true Maina' does?

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

great slice of a disappearing life, takes place in the town of "Pequot," which seems a lot like Camden. And I'm not just saying that because I know the author either