Henry Beetle Hough (1896–1985)

Henry Beetle Hough became famous as the long-time editor of the Vineyard Gazette a weekly newspaper published on the island of Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. He was, however, a son of New Bedford--once the center of the American offshore whaling industry and later one of New England's most important textile producers--and remained fascinated by the city and its history.

Long Anchorage, the fourth of his eight novels, is a sprawling saga that takes the reader on a tour of sixty years of New Bedford history, from the height of the whaling industry in the 1840s to the heyday of the textile mills in the early 1900s. The intertwined fortunes of two great (fictional) New Bedford families, the Ashmeads and the Riddells, drive the loosely knit plot, and their various members account for most of the large cast of characters, but the real star of the story is the city itself.

Hough's gift for descriptive prose and deft character sketches, which made his nonfiction and memoirs famous in their day and still worth reading, is also apparent here. He brings the details of nineteenth century New Bedford to life and makes it feel like a real and lived-in place. As a story, however, Long Anchorage ranges from adequate to dull. The main characters are two dimensional, their interactions awkward, and their dialogue stiff and declamatory. Russell Ashmead, the nominal hero, is framed as a bold, rebellious visionary, but we are told this by others, rather than shown for ourselves.

The plot is full of incidents that should be exciting--a whaling voyage, a mutiny, murder, elections, forbidden romance, the smuggling of an escaped slave to freedom, a contested will, a struggle for control of a family business -- but Hough (perhaps aware of his limitations as a novelist) skims over them or lets them unfold offscreen and then has someone report the results. A great deal happens in Long Anchorage but the reader is left caring about none of it.… (más)