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Spring Bear by Betsy Conner Bowen Longefeather Productions
book review by Maggie Harding
"It wasn't the same for Lester Darrow. Yes, he was a man on his way down from down. A man angry, a man feeling small."
Betsy Connor Bowen places Lester Darrow in the eye of a storm that is beginning to brew in the normally quiet Maine woods around Soper's Mills. He is the man who traps and kills spring bear. Then he removes the gall bladder, to sell for cash and leaves the bear to rot and her cubs to fend for themselves. He is the man who has no compunction about moving in on a friend's wife or harassing her teen-age daughter, Evvie. When Evvie turns out to be pregnant, Darrow feels justified in his rantings.
Much of the story focuses on the conflict Evvie feels about her unborn child, loving it and yet realizing that she would be unable to care for it properly. Both wanting to find a good home for the child and wanting to leave Soper's Mills, never to return; more than most fourteen-year-olds have to deal with. As the tale moves toward its unexpected climax, the reader is caught up in an unusual slice of life drama.
In this seventy-nine page novella, Bowen has managed to capture the flavor of Maine, it's stoic Yankee characters, and a story that will make you glad to have experienced them. In typical frugal New England fashion, the author demonstrates her ability to speak volumes with an economic use of words not usually found in debut books.