Van Reid at home in Edgecomb, the town he has spent most of his life getting to know. The Moosepath League saga, his series of novels detailing the adventures of a club of gentlemen across late-19th century Maine, drew on his background in a storytelling family and curiosity for history. (Elizabeth Walztoni photo)
Van Reid can see that stories are important to everyone, whether they realize it or not – that’s why people watch TV, go the movies, and read books. They’re especially important to the author, storyteller, and deep-rooted Edgecomb resident.
“Telling a story just sort of comes out of me,” he said. “That’s always been my main form of communication.”
Reid grew up in New Hampshire and Newcastle, part of a family of storytellers that lived in and around Edgecomb for generations. He learned their technique without realizing it, he said, staying up late listening to stories traded back and forth, hoping no one would notice he was up past his bedtime.
“It is an art and a craft, knowing what to put in and when to pause … it isn’t always just the material, it’s how you present it,” he said.
As a teenager, he decided to stay in Edgecomb after graduating from Lincoln Academy so that he could get to know the area and its history as well as anyone could. He worked as an orderly at what is now LincolnHealth’s Miles Campus in Damariscotta when it was a small hospital, at Paul’s Flooring, building wooden toys for George Cole, at his own family’s business, and at Belknap’s Hardware in Damariscotta.
“I was just so lucky. I had so many good people I worked for and worked with,” he said.
Looking for a change, he asked for a job at the Maine Coast Book Shop in late 1990. Reid stayed for 10 years in what he said was a job he trained his whole life for and still misses.
Along the way, he married his wife, Maggie, after they connected in a Lincoln County Community Theater production. When they were expecting their first child, Hunter, Reid decided to get serious about writing a book.
With three novels already “tucked away in a drawer somewhere where they won’t hurt anybody,” he hit on the idea of the Moosepath League stories.
Inspired by Charles Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers,” Reid wrote about an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club and the members’ adventures across late-19th century Maine and Lincoln County.
“I kept finding myself going back further and further back into the story, and finally I got to this point where I had an old sea man showing up at a house in Portland to say that he has the sea trunk of one of their family members who died at sea,” Reid said. “So they have to go to the customs house to get it, and of course there’s something in the sea trunk that will lead to an adventure.”
The “moral center” of the series is Mister Walton, who ends up involved with three other men looking to form a club which becomes the Moosepath League.
“They’re totally naïve,” Reid said. “They’re in trouble and they get out of trouble without evening knowing they’ve ever been in trouble, because they’re so innocent.”
Adventures ensue including an escaped circus bear, the moose that gave the league its name, a hot air balloon ascent, and many other characters with interwoven plot lines.
Also inspired by Dickens, who published books chapter by chapter in periodicals, Reid serialized the first book in The Lincoln County Weekly newspaper.
Reid’s friend and fellow author quietly sent clippings to his own agent, ultimately leading to a three book deal with Viking Penguin. The first novel, “Cordelia Underwood: Or, The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League,” was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1998 and received national press.
Reid went on to write five more Moosepath League books, another related novel, and two story collections.
“I think maybe my not having gone to college was actually a leg up, because I didn’t go through the same chute everyone else went through,” he said. “I didn’t know any better … there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel in my books.”
When he started writing, he said part of the idea was to teach and preserve Maine history.
“I did meet people that didn’t seem to have any idea of what Maine was like or what we had offered the country,” Reid said. “We’ve kind of hit above our weight.”
Since his own childhood times in Sheepscot and the lives of the generation before his, he said he has seen changes in ways of life and culture. The television, for one, changed the practice of going over to the neighbor’s for a visit unannounced to spend time talking, he said. There are fewer community groups and events. More new residents are a change, too.
“We’re losing a way of life and a way of thinking about it, and I don’t begrudge the change necessarily,” he said. “People come from away and they move in here. I love that they love it here, and many bring wonderful things and are hard workers.
“… Because they love it so much, they care what happened before,” Reid continued. “They don’t think society arrived when they did. Some people come here and they think culture arrived with them … they were people that just didn’t understand.”
Part of that history is reflected in his style of storytelling. To Reid, a good story has a point, and often some humor to it. Maine humor in particular has what he calls a “certain bent” – humble, often dry, and a little self-deprecating – which he was quick to provide an example of.
“I tell them about the rancher from Texas who’s vacationing in Maine, and he’s talking to a Maine farmer,” Reid said. “He’s getting frustrated because he can’t seem to impress the Maine farmer with how big things are in Texas. Finally he says, ‘Well, back home, it takes me three days to drive from one end of my spread to the other,’ and the Maine farmer says, ‘Yeah, I got a truck like that too.’”
The stories Reid tells and writes also have living pains in them – lost family members, war, and financial difficulty. The supernatural appears in some of the tales, too, with haunted houses, mysterious figures, and unexplained sounds.
“My parents always said take it with a grain of salt, don’t swallow it whole,” Reid said of ghost tales, “and I always say, but they’re good New Englanders, so they didn’t throw it away either. You never throw anything away.”
Sharing these familiar stories give a sense of continuity and connection to Reid. Sometimes, he’ll call his brother his brother to trade tales they’ve known for years and never get tired.
“I’ve always loved history,” he said. “It gives you a foothold.”
While the stories he knows and tells are largely about his own family, everyone is naturally curious and naturally interesting, in Reid’s view. He encourages others to ask questions of their elders to learn new things.
Still, Reid said he considers himself very lucky for the loving family, role models, and experiences he had here.
“I had wonderful parents, I’ve had marvelous friends, I had some great teachers and I married a wonderful woman and have two great kids,” he said. “Somehow, I still managed to be happy.”
Reid’s novels can be found at downeastbooks.com.
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