The Grifter, the Poet, and the Runaway Train

For over 20 years, Geoffrey Douglas has written feature-length pieces for Yankee magazine that chronicle extraordinary stories that have taken place in New England. Some have been about public events, widely reported––a Maine town turning against itself under the weight of an influx of Somalis, a fatal fire in Worcester, MA, a Vermont reporter’s defense of marriage equality. Others, have been more private, the stories of men and women surviving, facing choices, living life––a small-time jockey scratching out an existence at county-fair racetracks; the long, sad fall of a Maine lottery winner, a poet’s love affair with his town. The best of these, taken together, make for a rich and updated collection of New England portraits: mostly ordinary lives, upended by choice or chance, turned suddenly, unexpectedly remarkable.