Living on the Edge

For nearly three decades I’ve been living life on the edge. My neighbors might find that characterization of Cape Elizabeth extreme. Daily dramas in our town rarely exceed such emergencies as a flock of turkeys blocking Route 77 or C Salt selling out of peanut butter cookies. 

But you only need to walk along the cliffs at Portland Headlight or the shore of Crescent Beach to be reminded that in this small strip of Southern Maine, we spend our days perched on the thin line between land and sea. At a time when I have one foot still planted in my vocation and the other poised to step into my avocation, I now find I’m also living on the edge between security and possibility.

For the past ten years, I’ve been popping across the bridge for my day job as a brand strategist for Pulp+Wire, the very creative Portland design agency that’s boomed right along with the town across the water. The work I’ve done there to help our team brand the corporate identities of our clients has granted me the power to dive deep into countless companies’ stories to find their core themes. That skill has also been critical to the work I do before I punch in every morning and after I clock out at night. The novels I pen in those off-hours can often reach 100,000 words. As any writer who’s played with that form knows, if you want a reader to stick with you for that long, you better have a point.

HarperCollins gave me a shot at making one with Autumn Imago, my novelistic love letter to Baxter State Park. But, with the exception of an exceptional wingman, I flew solo with my latest book. I had the help of Dr. Lee Thibodeau, the noted neurosurgeon (and friend), who talked me into writing it. This medical thriller is based on the seed of the story Lee gave me and supported with his professional insight and introduction to the host of professional peers who provided the same. 

When The Corpse Bloom was named a finalist for The Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction on May 2nd, it made me question where the next chapter in my own life might go. And I know no better place to wander when I wonder about such things than along the local bump into Casco Bay I call home.

My regular route for my morning musings here in Cape takes me along the curve of the coast just south of Trundy Point. Every time I walk Surfside Avenue, my eyes drift to the horizon. It’s a place wide enough to see the subtle curve of that line. Every time I do, it stops the string of words running through my head long enough to reveal that I’m a person living not only in a town—but on a planet—a perspective that reminds me that I’m a character in my own story and that it’s one with an arc yet to be defined. 

A year or so from now, that tale will take another twist. I’ll be penning more plot lines than taglines, then, and though I’ve had some success with The Corpse Bloom, there’s no guarantee the new book I’m wading through now will follow that fate. Most novelists know that every book is an act of faith, a long, lonely prayer that what we have to say is something others might want to hear. I’m just happy I can take that leap in a place that reminds me, every day, of the road we all walk between what is and what might be.

You can learn more about Bryan, The Corpse Bloom, and his writing at brywig.com.