Off-Season : Discovering America on Winter's Shore

Rating:
Summary: A Deftly Written and Engaging Memoir
Review: Consider the sad fate that has overtaken the word "tourist" in recent years.

It started out meaning simply someone who travels somewhere to see the local sights. But over time it has taken on a strong odor of disapproval. "Tourists" arrive in huge crowds, create congestion, behave rudely, drink too much, speak in weird accents, leave trails of litter behind them and condescend to the locals. Economically they are a necessary evil in the eyes of residents (I once heard a board member of Colonial Williamsburg complaining about the damage inflicted there by tourists: "Couldn't they just stay home and send the money?").

Ken McAlpine, however, is a different kind of tourist. Unhappy with the stress and bustle of American life in general, he set out --- alone --- in his van to find places where what he considers the true spirit of "real" America survives. His hunting ground was the East Coast, from the Florida Keys to Lubec, Maine. And just to show that he was no typical tourist, he traveled in midwinter, largely avoiding the better-known tourist roosting places in favor of out-of-the-way areas, like the spot on the New Jersey shore where one resident told him, "We don't want people to know where Strathmere is." No Sanibel, Hilton Head, Cape May or Hamptons for Ken McAlpine.

McAlpine has chronicled this offbeat odyssey in a deftly written memoir. He is an experienced travel writer with a nice gift for simile and metaphor and a gift for seeking out crusty local characters who seem wedded to the places they inhabit. OFF SEASON is enjoyable reading, but it also has a subtle undercurrent of concern for an imperiled American lifestyle that McAlpine treasures. He deplores the creeping advance of urban sprawl toward the unspoiled places he finds, and he sides unashamedly with the small-town heroes who are fighting against it.

The major East Coast cities --- Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston --- are either skirted entirely or summarily dismissed as obstacles to be got through as quickly as possible en route to more interesting places like the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Tangier Island, VA, or Montauk at the eastern tip of Long Island.

McAlpine has a thing for "the loveliness of islands." Fishermen, beaches and water bulk large in his narrative. He went to the trouble of packing a kayak into his van so he could periodically go off by himself and paddle around looking for exotica, human, vegetable and animal. And the casual reader will painlessly learn a fair amount about fish and fishing. Several of the places he visits can be reached only by boat. There are no maps in OFF SEASON, so it is a good idea to have an atlas handy as you read.

Summer weather was still around in the Florida Keys when he started out in October, but as he gets farther north winter is an increasingly bold presence, culminating in a harrowing night spent in a ditch when his van slid off an isolated rural road in Maine. He finds his interest shifting from meeting colorful people to spending time alone, tramping beaches or exploring inlets to drink in a sense of inner peace.

The spirit of this engaging book is well captured by the picture on its cover. A group of empty canvas beach chairs stand, backs to the viewer, looking out over a flat expanse of water. A thin line on the horizon suggests, rather than depicts, a far shore. A lone gull inspects the scene. Not a "tourist" in sight.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

Rating:
Summary: A Deftly Written and Engaging Memoir
Review: Consider the sad fate that has overtaken the word "tourist" in recent years.

It started out meaning simply someone who travels somewhere to see the local sights. But over time it has taken on a strong odor of disapproval. "Tourists" arrive in huge crowds, create congestion, behave rudely, drink too much, speak in weird accents, leave trails of litter behind them and condescend to the locals. Economically they are a necessary evil in the eyes of residents (I once heard a board member of Colonial Williamsburg complaining about the damage inflicted there by tourists: "Couldn't they just stay home and send the money?").

Ken McAlpine, however, is a different kind of tourist. Unhappy with the stress and bustle of American life in general, he set out --- alone --- in his van to find places where what he considers the true spirit of "real" America survives. His hunting ground was the East Coast, from the Florida Keys to Lubec, Maine. And just to show that he was no typical tourist, he traveled in midwinter, largely avoiding the better-known tourist roosting places in favor of out-of-the-way areas, like the spot on the New Jersey shore where one resident told him, "We don't want people to know where Strathmere is." No Sanibel, Hilton Head, Cape May or Hamptons for Ken McAlpine.

McAlpine has chronicled this offbeat odyssey in a deftly written memoir. He is an experienced travel writer with a nice gift for simile and metaphor and a gift for seeking out crusty local characters who seem wedded to the places they inhabit. OFF SEASON is enjoyable reading, but it also has a subtle undercurrent of concern for an imperiled American lifestyle that McAlpine treasures. He deplores the creeping advance of urban sprawl toward the unspoiled places he finds, and he sides unashamedly with the small-town heroes who are fighting against it.

The major East Coast cities --- Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston --- are either skirted entirely or summarily dismissed as obstacles to be got through as quickly as possible en route to more interesting places like the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Tangier Island, VA, or Montauk at the eastern tip of Long Island.

McAlpine has a thing for "the loveliness of islands." Fishermen, beaches and water bulk large in his narrative. He went to the trouble of packing a kayak into his van so he could periodically go off by himself and paddle around looking for exotica, human, vegetable and animal. And the casual reader will painlessly learn a fair amount about fish and fishing. Several of the places he visits can be reached only by boat. There are no maps in OFF SEASON, so it is a good idea to have an atlas handy as you read.

Summer weather was still around in the Florida Keys when he started out in October, but as he gets farther north winter is an increasingly bold presence, culminating in a harrowing night spent in a ditch when his van slid off an isolated rural road in Maine. He finds his interest shifting from meeting colorful people to spending time alone, tramping beaches or exploring inlets to drink in a sense of inner peace.

The spirit of this engaging book is well captured by the picture on its cover. A group of empty canvas beach chairs stand, backs to the viewer, looking out over a flat expanse of water. A thin line on the horizon suggests, rather than depicts, a far shore. A lone gull inspects the scene. Not a "tourist" in sight.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

Rating:
Summary: Ever want to get away from it all?
Review: Do you ever feel like getting away for awhile, leaving family and friends for a brief vacation - but can't? Pick up a copy of this book to have on hand when the mood hits. Like the armchair athlete, you will have a vicarious experience, but you won't find a more enjoyable or relaxing way to "go".

Author Ken McAlpine left on this trip initially because "the world seemed to be sliding with exponential speed into a cesspool of trouble ...terrorism, murder, corporate fraud...the woeful list...familiar to anyone who reads today's news".

(Does this sound like anything YOU may have felt lately?)

McAlpine believes (and seeks to confirm) that "most of the world isn't like this...that the clamor and flash of mayhem and mistrust have drowned out the better behavior of the world at large". His trip is a test of sorts: does he find the "proof that the world still rests on a quiet foundation of hope and community"?

He decides to visit oceanside communities in winter, exploring the reality that exists when they are uncluttered by tourists and the usual summer distractions. McAlpine is a travel writer, so he beautifully describes the locales he visits up and down the eastern seaboard. But he is also an astute observer of human behavior and has a degree in environmental science, so his perceptions are interesting and informative as he shares stories and chats with the locals about their way of life. I found myself happy to be "traveling" with Ken because his wonderful, dry sense of humor puts much of what he finds into a warm, compassionate and often hilarious perspective.

Does he find what he's looking for?

Pick up a copy and put it on your nightstand. Keep it for when you aren't sure if you can watch yet another evening newscast, or read another depressing headline. Then savor McAlpine's take on our modern world.

Rating:
Summary: Ever want to get away from it all?
Review: Do you ever feel like getting away for awhile, leaving family and friends for a brief vacation - but can't? Pick up a copy of this book to have on hand when the mood hits. Like the armchair athlete, you will have a vicarious experience, but you won't find a more enjoyable or relaxing way to "go".

Author Ken McAlpine left on this trip initially because "the world seemed to be sliding with exponential speed into a cesspool of trouble ...terrorism, murder, corporate fraud...the woeful list...familiar to anyone who reads today's news".

(Does this sound like anything YOU may have felt lately?)

McAlpine believes (and seeks to confirm) that "most of the world isn't like this...that the clamor and flash of mayhem and mistrust have drowned out the better behavior of the world at large". His trip is a test of sorts: does he find the "proof that the world still rests on a quiet foundation of hope and community"?

He decides to visit oceanside communities in winter, exploring the reality that exists when they are uncluttered by tourists and the usual summer distractions. McAlpine is a travel writer, so he beautifully describes the locales he visits up and down the eastern seaboard. But he is also an astute observer of human behavior and has a degree in environmental science, so his perceptions are interesting and informative as he shares stories and chats with the locals about their way of life. I found myself happy to be "traveling" with Ken because his wonderful, dry sense of humor puts much of what he finds into a warm, compassionate and often hilarious perspective.

Does he find what he's looking for?

Pick up a copy and put it on your nightstand. Keep it for when you aren't sure if you can watch yet another evening newscast, or read another depressing headline. Then savor McAlpine's take on our modern world.

Rating:
Summary: A rare treat, an emotional winter jaunt
Review: Journalist Ken McAlpine's decision to travel slowly from Florida to Maine in the dead of winter could not have been more appropriate. Familiar miasmic tourist locations like Key West, the Outer Banks, the Jersey Shore, Long Island's East End, coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island and the Cape all take on new sheen and character under McAlpine's pen. I couldn't help but be jealous for all the solitude and friendship he found on his frigid but warm winter trips. Anyone who has appreciated a quiet, special location when the tourists were all gone will doubtless appreciate the dialog, the characters and the voyage itself. As several reviewers have already noted, McAlpine's fresh travel log achieves and instills an admiration, respect and vigorous hope for an America in which there is still so much originality, warmth and community. Thanks to McAlpine, we can recognize that hope. I loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: Move Over, Conroy!
Review: This book sings of the eastern coast of the United States in much the same style as my favorite Poet-Novelist, Pat Conroy. I can feel the salt spray, and the cold, and the emotional ups and downs of the author as I savor each chapter!

I have craved my own experiences in these locations, and maybe someday, I'll use McAlpine's book as a tour guide!

Rating:
Summary: For the love of the ocean.
Review: Throughout his life the ocean has mesmerized Ken Alpine; the effect on his soul by the ocean has been tremendous. He even states that he was almost born and he kissed his true love by the ocean's edge. What interests him are individuals who are also connected to the ocean and who live within its vicinity year round. In OFF SEASON Ken Alpine embarks on a physical, albeit emotional, journey north from Florida to Maine during the autumn and winter months after the departure of the tourists to ascertain the authentic edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

I have very little experience with the East Coast so reading this book was refreshing. I gained a new perspective of how these small communities survive and have evolved throughout the decades and their inhabitants. Soon after beginning this book it is clearly apparent that Alpine is no fan of tourism and the development of the oceanfront. He continually laments the commercialization and homogenization of society and it's destructive forces; during his journey he deliberately avoids the large tourist resorts in favor of the unforgotten fishing towns that border the Atlantic.

If you don't mind repeatedly being bombarded with Alpine's political agenda OFF SEASON is a meaningful, innovated travelogue of one man's fascination and concern with the ocean and the individuals who make their living near it year around. Recommended.