North Of the Tension Line

 

J.I. Riordan, “North of the Tension Line,” Kindle Edition 1^st in series of 4, Vintage Books, 2014, ??? pp.

I follow the author’s husband, Charles Sykes, on Twitter and his tweets led me to this author.  Apparently, this book is the first of a four-book series—I have now read all four. 

Here’s the plot:  Fiona Campbell is a newcomer to tiny Ephraim, Wisconsin in Door County, she writes technical political articles for a living.  Most of Door County, including Ephraim, is populated with artists, retirees, and summer tourists.  The book does not clarify why Fiona at thirty-two years of age and unmarried is attracted to Ephraim, but her job allows her to work remotely.  In any event, she is not a fan of the furthest tip of Door County peninsula, Washington Island.  A place I visited once (quite enough) that is only reached by ferry.  I, like Fiona, am convinced that only lunatics and hermits could survive a winter in its frigid isolation with poor internet service. 

Fiona, while drinking with friends, accepts a dare that she cannot survive the winter on the island in a decrepit, old house. Armed with some very fine single malt scotch and a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Fiona sets out to win the dare and discovers that small town life is not nearly as dull as she had foreseen. Abandoning the things she has always thought important, she encounters the vicious politics of small-town life, a ruthless neighbor, a goat named “Robert”, a really mean dog named “Piggy”, and a haunted ferry captain.

Characters:

Elizabeth: Fiona’s best friend

Roger: runs the coffee shop named “Coffee”.  He is an autistic retired physicist and the man who gave Fiona the goat as a present.

Champagne Man (Peter Landry)

Stella: Fiona’s unpleasant neighbor on the Island.

My Notes:

Page 14:  Roger Mason, the owner of The Coffee Shop is a retired physicist who claimed that these other things were distractions from the coffee, and besides, just attracted the wrong sort of people. People who asked for froufrou things like skim milk or a latte were frightened into silence by one look from Roger. There were no franchise operations in Door County.

Page 32:  Washington Island, the locals said, was “north of the tension line,” so no one behind the counter had any particular interest in rushing and signs warning impatient Illinois tourists that patience was a virtue were prominently displayed.

Page 93:  The French explorers, including Robert de LaSalle, who had visited Washington Island, had called it Porte des Morts, the Door of the Dead, and the county took its name from this cheerful allusion. Death’s Door was the common name for the straits, used so regularly that its meaning had been dulled to residents.

Page 151:  There was some inner chart she kept which made any day spent outdoors—even while sleeping—count more fully in her life than days spent otherwise.

Page 377:  There was the Island. There was everything else. It wasn’t that Islanders, as a rule, were insular, but something happened here, north of the tension line, that created a sense of what mattered and what didn’t.

Page 384:  ”How would Champagne Man have stacked up,” she wondered, wishing for the thousandth time that she had at least learned his name.

Page 411:  “It’s such a cliché,” she said at last, “but still surprising when you find out for yourself how much life changes when you’ve encountered death. You think it’s about prizes and headlines and big accomplishments. But really it’s about kindness, the first cup of coffee, and a clean kitchen floor. Those are the things that matter.”