Issues → May/June 2009 → Home & Garden →

Isle Au Haut, ME: Linda Greenlaw's Retreat

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Linda did have to make one compromise: She longed for a cream-and-green Glenwood, but had to settle for gray. But any good fishing captain knows how to adapt to changing circumstances. So the reproduction pressed-tin wall behind the stove today is painted--of course--green, nicely offsetting the gray stove.

Getting together with family and friends is a primary diversion on an island where residents must devise their own entertainment. Linda has written that no island house is without a cribbage board. Her brother lives next door and her parents just beyond him--and she laughs that she's probably related to half of the year-round population of about 50. There's plenty of room in winter to gather around the five-foot square table custom built by Vermont's Pompanoosuc Mills. Come summer, gatherings spill out through the doors to the two-level deck.

Linda doesn't have a secluded space devoted to writing--no garrets or musty rooms filled with books. Like a hermit crab, she tends to occupy available space, where she writes in longhand before typing a final draft into her computer. "If I'm here by myself," she explains, "I normally set up at my kitchen table and really spread out."

When she finds the house filling with friends and family--and last November she became the legal guardian of an island teenager--she retreats to her spacious bedroom and works at a desk tucked under the eaves. The west-facing wall is glass, serving up endless views across the water to North Haven and Vinalhaven islands. With its sloping ceiling and expansive vistas, the space gives the sense of being cloistered while also connected to the broader world beyond. It's the perfect retreat.

Well, almost perfect. "In the winter, when there's snow on the ground and a full moon," Linda says, "it's so bright it's impossible to sleep. I end up getting up and just looking out the window, and thinking, Wow, look at this."

Linda's next book, about her return to swordfishing after a hiatus of more than 10 years, will be published by Viking in the summer of 2010. Her previous books (all from Hyperion, 1999-2008) include: The Hungry Ocean ($7.99), The Lobster Chronicles ($13.95), All Fishermen Are Liars ($14), Slipknot ($6.99), and Fisherman's Bend ($7.99).

Looking for lodging on this Maine island? Inn at Isle au Haut