From the Stacks: Love triumphs in 'The Last Days of Dogtown'

I've read two other books by Anita Diamant ("The Red Tent" and "The Boston Girl"), both of which tilted my worldview, like any good book should. So when I saw a book of hers at the Missouri River Regional Library's annual book sale in March, I had to have it. Of the 43 books I purchased that day, "The Last Days of Dogtown" is the first I read.

"The Last Days of Dogtown" describes the events and the people that led to the abandonment of a remote village between Gloucester and Rockport on Cape Ann in Massachusetts. Settled in the late 1600s, Dogtown was mostly abandoned after the War of 1812, and the last inhabitants lived side-by-side with feral dogs, trying to eke out a living from the rocky soil.

What always amazes me about Anita Diamant is the amount of empathy she shows toward every character in her story. Several of these people are clearly not good guys or reliable narrators, but she manages to show their situation with a very humanized point of view. Characters who might not deserve forgiveness or redemption receive it, and though I am definitely a reader who falls into the "you reap what you sow" category of compassion (at least when it comes to antagonists in books), her insight into their lives made me rethink my anger and disgust toward some of the inhabitants of Cape Ann.

The main theme in "The Last Days of Dogtown," if there is one, is love. Judy Rhines falls in love with Cornelius, a black man who was her lover briefly, then watches over her from afar. Ruth, a black woman who dresses as a man, loves her landlady Easter for being kind when she didn't have to be. Oliver falls for Polly, who makes him a better man. Diamant writes in all her books about the triumph of love over everything else, even though it sometimes leads you astray or arrives just a bit too late.

"We are all people," she tells us through her writing. "We all deserve love."

"The Last Days of Dogtown" gives us a view into the lives of these last dwellers of an inhospitable village and about the people upon whom the neighboring towns turned their backs. If you want a book about the harsh but beautiful Massachusetts wilderness, about looking further than the surface of your fellow man, about defying odds for love, this book is for you.

Megan Mehmert is a teen programming associate at Missouri River Regional Library.