Denmark Historical Society, Public Library and Arts Center Collaborative presents the Authors Series with Maine author and songwriter Gregory Brown at 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 11, in Bicentennial Park, across from the Arts Center, in Denmark. Submitted photo
Denmark Historical Society, Public Library and Arts Center Collaborative presents the Authors Series with Maine author and songwriter Gregory Brown at 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 11, in Bicentennial Park, across from the Arts Center, in Denmark. Brown will present an afternoon reading in the park and discuss the writing of his new novel, “The Lowering Days.”
“The Lowering Days” is about growing up. David Almerin Ames and his brothers, Link and Simon, thought of the wild patch of Maine where they lived along the Penobscot River as theirs. Running down the state like a spine, the river shared its name with the people of the Penobscot Nation, whose ancestral territory included the entire Penobscot watershed, the land upon which the Ames family eventually made their home.
The brothers’ affinity for the natural world derives from their iconoclastic parents, Arnoux, a romantic artist and Vietnam War deserter who builds boats by hand, and Falon, an activist journalist who runs The Lowering Days, a community newspaper that gives equal voice to indigenous and white issues.
But the boys’ childhood dreamscape is shattered when a Penobscot teenager sets fire to a shuttered area paper mill on the eve of its possible reopening in an act of defiance seeking to protect the land from further harm. The fire reveals a stark truth for the residents of the Penobscot Valley. For many, the mill is a lifeline, providing working class jobs they need to survive. Within the Penobscot Nation, the mill brings only heartache, spewing toxic chemicals and wastewater products that poison the river’s fish and plants.
DAC will follow CDC guidelines for outdoor events. A Pay-What-You-Can this summer. Pre-registration is requested.
The Denmark Arts Center is an award-winning 501(c)3 cultural organization founded in 1994 in the rural community of Denmark. Housed in the town’s historic 1883 Odd Fellows Hall, the DAC offers year-round events and workshops in contemporary dance, theater, music and visual art to community members young and old. DAC is at 50 West Main St., Denmark. For more information, visit http://www.denmarkarts.org.
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