04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Appreciation: John Casey (1939-2025)
In 1991, the summer before senior year, my high school assigned three books for reading. Summer books weren't those considered classics, like 'King Lear' or Robert Penn Warren's 'All the King's Men,' but they were contenders, near-greats: 'The Street,' Ann Petry's 1946 novel about black life in Harlem; 'The Road From Coorain,' Jill Ker Conway's (1989) memoir of her bleak childhood in the Australian grasslands; and John Casey's 1989 novel, 'Spartina.'
In the first English class meeting of the school year, the only book we wanted to talk about was 'Spartina.' How could we not? For starters, there were the main characters' names: Dick Pierce and Elsie Buttrick. Ponder those names as if you were 17. But once Mrs. Archibald waited out our tittering and steered us toward the text, we agreed this maritime thriller was special. The story follows middle-aged Yankee Dick Pierce as he negotiates the class politics of his coastal Rhode Island community, works odd jobs for the summer vacationers, and slowly builds the boat that will give him financial freedom as an independent fisherman.
