The Drowned Land, is a collection of the first stories Chase ever wrote
and was first published as an anthology by ebooksonthe.net in 1999. The
anthology became an Epic Award finalist that year. The title novella
won the Maryland Governor’s Award for fiction in 1980, but was not
published for another two years, finally being serialized in Chesapeake
Bay Magazine. “A Man’s Share” and "Bond of Gold" also appeared there.
Others of the stories appeared in several little and literary magazines
that are no longer in publication.
Characters featured in the stories,many based on family history, eventually made their way into Chase's first novel, Killraven.
Characters featured in the stories,many based on family history, eventually made their way into Chase's first novel, Killraven.
Happy Throwback Thursday, everyone. Don't forget to enter your own book in the Epic Awards this year. The time is Nigh!
Arline, who is wondering if it's worth the work to ytanslate this into a format SW will accept.
Barfer Robinson’s
Dredge Boat** Coffee
In a percolator pot, fill basket with about as much ground coffee as it will hold –add a dash of salt and throw an empty egg shell in the bottom of the pot. Fill the coffee pot up with water level to the basket.
Percolate on high heat until liquid in the bubble top is good and dark. Remove from fire and when it has stopped perking, remove the percolator basket. Fill up the rest of the pot with white lightning, if there’s no white lighting, bourbon or dark rum will do.
Serve black to six hungry crewmen along with bacon, eggs, and pancakes smothered in molasses and it will help keep them warm even when sailing against the wind on a frosty morning.
Contributed by Arline Chase, whose character, Barfer Robinson is ship’s cook aboard the Hope V. Rogers. “Barfer,” so called by his mates because he is often seasick, made his first appearance in The Drowned Land...The novella won The Governor's Award in 1984 in Maryland, and the short story collection was an Eppie Finalist in 1999. Many of the same characters appear in the later novel Killraven.
** Dredge Boats, like the skipjack shown on the cover above, were the last working sailing craft, dredging the Bay's bottoms for Oysters well into the 1960s. Back in the 30s they clustered so thick in the harbor that a kid could "skip across Cambridge Creek on a dare," by jumping from one moored dredge boat to another.
As a conservation measure, the craft, by law, could operate only with sail power.
Sounds like a serious breakfast. I had an old-timey friend who made his white lightning out of alcohol and Kool-Aid.
ReplyDeleteCorn and sugar down this way, C.M. It was a very serious job -- outside in all weathers, no motorized winches to raise the dredge, all muscle. My son worked on one of the last in 1976.
ReplyDelete