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AUBURN — The Androscoggin Historical Society will present Maine author Deborah Gould at its next regular monthly meeting in the society’s museum located on the third floor of the Androscoggin County Building. The evening gets under way at 7 p.m Tuesday, April 25. Gould will discuss her most recent book, “The Eastern: The Early Years,” the first of a two-volume work based on the lives of five families who settled along the Eastern River in East Pittston in the 19th century. The novel spans 45 years of social change, from 1820 to the end of the Civil War in 1865.
“The characters in this novel were real people, who established an agricultural community that lasted well into the 20th century,” Gould noted. “Only a few of those farmhouses are still there today, though.”
Gould bought and lived in one of those farmhouses in the 1990s. “I’ve researched every house I’ve ever owned,” she said, “and the history of this particular house brought me to Joel Thompson and his family. From there, I followed the deeds to the neighboring farms. Before long, I had an entire community.”
Using town records, census information, probate files and social notes from old area newspapers, Gould established a factual framework of families and events and then developed them into the novel.
“All those public records gave me the bones of the novel,” Gould said, “and living in the area gave me a deep sense of the place — the land, the Eastern and Kennebec river valleys, the neighborhood. After that, I was on my own.”
Both fiction and social history, “The Eastern” explores themes of community and reciprocity in a 19th-century agricultural neighborhood.
“We’ve lost those old social constructs,” Gould said. “We’ve lost that sense of community — of working together for the common good; ‘The Eastern’ is my way of bringing those values back again.”
Gould grew up in Portland and Brunswick. After college in New Hampshire and the beginnings of a publishing career in Boston, she came to her senses and moved back to Maine. She lived and worked on a dairy farm, then owned a successful graphic arts business for a number of years before earning a degree in sign language interpreting. She spent the next 25 years in public education, specializing in English acquisition for students with cochlear implants. She is currently at work on a sequel.
There is no charge for the program, but donations are encouraged. The building is handicapped accessible.
