Fellowship Point: Quakers, Conflict, and Friendship

 

FELLOWSHIP POINT (2023)

By Alice Elliott Dark

Simon and Schuster, 578 pages

★★★★ ½ 

 

 

It has been said that Quakers came to do good and did well. In a roundabout way, that’s the crux of Fellowship Point, a superb new novel by Alice Elliott Dark.

 

Its central character is Agnes Lee who did well indeed in her inheritance and as author of a series of children’s books about 9-year-old Nan, whose adventures are reminiscent of a better-behaved Eloise. Agnes has remained mum about the inspiration for Nan. Her lifelong friend Polly Wister always imagined it was her daughter Lydia, who died at nine.

 

Much of the novel is about the friendship between Agnes and Polly, though it’s not easy being Agnes’s friend. Agnes is an opinionated crank with secrets, is a confirmed spinster, and unbeknown even to Polly also writes under the pseudonym of Pauline Schultz. Those books are arch takedowns of Rittenhouse Square elites, though the Lees could be counted among them. As is often the case, those who lampoon miss the irony that they “have met the enemy and they is us,” as Pogo would have put it.

 

Agnes is also the fulcrum of another irony in that old Quaker money is behind the novel’s namesake dilemma: what to do with Fellowship Point. Several generations ago, five families bought 35 acres of coastal land in Maine, where they summered amidst locals. The latter are a mix of those who provide services joyfully, those who do so grudgingly, and those who want no part of outsiders.

 

Themes of native Mainers versus summer people are commonplace in literature, but Dark twists an old meme via a plot device that blurs who’s right and who’s wrong. Agnes and Polly, both in their 80s, want the Point and the wild “Sank” to become a public trust. That’s tricky as the original charter stipulates that three of the five families that own the land must vote to dissolve their association before anything else can be done with it. Agnes never married, so no problem there, but obstacles loom.

 

Polly likes the idea, but she’s passive in more than the Quaker opposition to war. She kowtows to her husband Dick, an embittered retired UPenn philosophy professor denied emeritus status. Agnes thinks he’s a pompous lightweight but tries to hold her tongue for Polly’s sake. His legacy will complicate matters and strain old friendships. Various cousins also have a say, including Archie, who is married to the unspeakably vain and manipulative Seela. There is also a development team that envisions an upscale resort, and Polly’s three sons, especially James, a smug (and greedy?) version of his father. It's difficult for locals to stay clear of this brewing tempest, including  Robert Circumstance who has tended the grounds for years and is a skilled landscape designer who has made Fellowship Point elegant.

 

As if Agnes doesn't have enough to navigate, she has a medical crisis and is being badgered by Maud Silver, an editorial assistant who hopes to advance her flagging career by convincing Agnes to write her memoir. That's about the last thing she wants to do! Maud also has baggage. Few know that she’s a single mom to a nine-year-old, or that her mother Heidi is in a catatonic state. Colleagues observe that Maud goes home earlier than anyone else, which is blood to sharks in New York publishing.

 

The novel spans the years 1961 to 2008 and is infused with many of the crises and highlights of those years, including Kennedy’s assassination, 9/11, and Barack Obama’s election. The past and present similarly collide, clash, and sometimes resolve among Dark’s characters. There's a lot going on in the book including the often-conflicting bonds between biological and intentional families and how one defines ownership, friendship, and love. Intertwined are a few mysteries and a wild card scenario in the Mainers versus summer people dilemma that redefines public and private spaces.

 

I really liked this novel, though it would be fair commentary to say that Dark is sometimes too ambitious for her own good. This causes her to trade in a few too many “coincidences.” Though Dark leavens her tale with humor, these sometimes stretch credulity. Still, Agnes is very memorable, even though she is fusty and obdurate. She put me in mind of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge: hard on the outside with soft spots hidden inside. Ultimately, Fellowship Point is a bit like the Quakers in that goodwill and right intentions prevail.

 

Rob Weir