Jay Atkinson

Equally terrifying and enlightening, the MASSACRE of 1697 is not bedtime reading.

Jay Atkinson has a compelling range, from tender landscapes and settings so vivid that readers
may actually hear the war party crawling toward the Duston home.

As well, he creates a near unbearable tension as Hannah Duston's "master" speaks of the fate of the rest of her family
and the projected horrors for the remaining captives as they travel toward the French to have scalps counted.

The balanced account of the peace sought by the high Abenaki leader Passaconaway as the Abenaki hunting and fishing lands
were stolen contrasts with both the savagery and tortures inflicted by
the Colonial Europeans and the "Indians" - Iroquoi and later Abenaki descendants.… (més)

Here's a history familiar to many in Eastern Massachusetts: as Puritan families came over to the new world, many settled in isolated wilderness areas because land was cheaper than in the settlement towns. In 1697, the French and English were still fiercely competing for territory, and members of the Eastern Native American tribes in the area that had not been wiped out by epidemics were used as raiders by the French to terrify settlers and to discourage them from staying and growing their families and farms.

On the outskirts of present day Haverhill, MA, the Duston family was the victim of a such a raid, and the matriarch Hannah, mother to nine living children, was taken, with her nurse and her week old daughter, by an Abenaki band. Her captivity and her revenge make for a fascinating and almost unbelievable tale.

Atkinson has done his research; in fact, the 82 pages of endnotes almost equal a second recounting. Subjects covered range from the vivid descriptions of the harsh land and the powerful Merrimack River, to the bustling Boston of the era and some of its most renowned statesmen, such as Cotton Mather and Samuel Sewall, both primary figures in the upcoming Salem witch trials.

Many of the local Native American tribes are discussed in depth, as well as the fearsome neighboring Iroquois nation. So many locations - towns, mountains, rivers, lake, highways - surrender the origin of their names.

The lives of Puritans, seemingly the evangelical Christians of their day, are convincingly told, as is the career of Count Frontenac, commander of the French in Quebec. The essential nature of beavers to the colonial economy, including a detailed description of the making of beaver hats (using chemicals so toxic that the phrase "mad as a hatter" comes into general usage) is explored.

There is such a wealth of fascinating information here that the Hannah Duston story is almost subsumed by every other amazing topic. And - spoiler alert - there is yet another Hannah, also from Haverhill, who is captured TWICE, nearly three times, and lives to tell the tales.

Colonial history lovers, rejoice!… (més)

Written in a heroic laudatory style that resembles the way sports writers kiss up to the likes of Derek Jeter, Legends of Winter Hill is a biography of a tough MDC cop and private detective Joe McCain. Hagiographic snippets of McCain's life are alternated with the author's participatory journalism as he works for the detective agency McCain founded, now managed by Joe McCain, Jr. There is no journalistic objectivity here, although the biases are obvious from the start so Atkinson is not attempting to deceive. On one hand, such gushing praise may be appropriate; we hear it all the time for sports stars and celebrities, why not for real heroes in the police force? On the other hand it gets to be too much, and one wonders if Atkinson has been totally sucked in by the legend of Joe McCain at the expense of other cops. An interesting trend in the book is the conflict between both McCains and their fellow police. Atkinson would have us believe that corruption is rife in the police departments and even good cops are poisoned by competition and backstabbing. Although this is likely to be true, it's hard to believe that McCain is the only honest cop. The inter-police confrontations overshadow the stories involving criminals, and make this a intriguing look into the police force (and probably one that will get Atkinson into a lot of trouble), if a poorly written one. The timeline is iffy in the book as it jumps from story to the present to story with little in the way of chronological cues. Atkinson frequently tries to make things sound more dangerous than they are, especially describing Somerville neighborhoods as rough and tumble, which may be true for the 70's & 80's, but he uses the same descriptions for today in places that are gentrified by Yuppies and college students. He also makes it sound like it's still full of Irish families instead of the predominant Brazilian presence of today. One of the great things about McCain is his empathy, he wasn't quick to judge, and was willing to give anyone a second chance.

"But McCain, unlike folks in other parts of the country, had never used a man's family as a line of demarcation. In Somerville, and certainly on Winter Hill, a single family might include a "good" cop, a bad cop, a priest and a wiseguy -- with a lot of gray area even between them." p. 155… (més)