grace his father brought to the art of casting a weightless line, his stiff arm tracing and retracing the same perfect arc. Now they cast together; in the darkness, Adam knew, no one could tell the father from the son.
Behind them, he heard voices in the night. On the rise that descended to the water, four more fishermen appeared, wearing boots and carrying fly rods, their outlines backlit like some shadowy militia come to occupy the beach. When Adam tried this simile on his father, Ben replied, “I may steal that from you, son. Did you ever consider writing yourself?”
“Compete with you? No thanks.”
Ben looked at him sharply. “If you’re afraid of that, all the more reason to try: fear exists to be mastered, not bowed to. Still, maybe you’re right—where is it written that you can do what I’ve done? And I can hardly blame you for choosing your own path. Thank God I didn’t follow my old man like he followed his.”
Though he could not see Ben’s face, Adam heard a note of satisfaction mixed with dread, as though Nathaniel Blaine might still pull Ben by the collar into the life he had fought to escape. “What was he like?” Adam asked. “I can’t remember much.”
“Limited,” Ben said flatly. “They all were. Granted, they had a certain mulish persistence that might have passed for character—through a century of lobstering, they stuck with it, no matter how hard the life. Their problem was tunnel vision. Each took those same traits of character and did the exact same thing, generation upon generation. From the age of five, I set out to be different.”
Something in Ben’s claim of uniqueness nettled Adam. “So did Jack,” he said.
Ben laughed under his breath. “Jack? All he managed was getting out of the water.”
It was always like this, Adam thought—his father determined to have him perceive his uncle as smaller than Ben himself. “He did more than that, Dad. Jack’s woodworking is special. He’s an artist, like Teddy.”
“Yes,” Ben answered tartly. “On a rock off the coast of Massachusetts, fifty square miles. This is a place to come back to, not to define the boundaries of a life. The world has too much to offer.”
Adam felt the familiar stab of ambivalence mixed with admiration. His father was ever on the lookout for places that bared the nature of man at its noblest and most terrible—in Vietnam, Cambodia, Kosovo, Nigeria, the West Bank, Lebanon, the Sudan. He had embedded himself with American troops during the Gulf War, followed the Afghan rebellion against the Soviets, forging lifelong bonds with a legendary operative for the CIA. It was as though he were engaged in a worldwide game of dare—danger, tragedy, and war had always drawn Benjamin Blaine.
But equal to Ben’s hunger for experience was his iron will to record it with merciless clarity. “Whatever you do,” his father continued, “dream big, take risks, and work harder than whoever else is doing the same thing. Do you know why I’ve succeeded? Not because of talent—I’ve known writers more gifted than I am. But I was driven to wring every molecule out of whatever talent I possessed. Success is not something you aspire to—you have to grab it by the throat.
“There’s a story about Bobby Kennedy I’ve always loved. When Bobby was attorney general, he set out to jail the crook who ran the Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa. One night Bobby worked on the Hoffa case until two a.m. Driving home, he passed the Teamsters Building, and saw the light on in Hoffa’s office. So he turned around and drove back to work.” Chuckling with fondness for the image, Ben concluded firmly, “There’ll be people better and smarter than you, Adam. There always are. Your strength must be to want it more, and let nothing get in the way. They called Robert Kennedy ruthless. But for a few months before he died, when I joined his campaign, I knew Bobby very well, and I can tell you he was most ruthless with himself. That’s
Behind them, he heard voices in the night. On the rise that descended to the water, four more fishermen appeared, wearing boots and carrying fly rods, their outlines backlit like some shadowy militia come to occupy the beach. When Adam tried this simile on his father, Ben replied, “I may steal that from you, son. Did you ever consider writing yourself?”
“Compete with you? No thanks.”
Ben looked at him sharply. “If you’re afraid of that, all the more reason to try: fear exists to be mastered, not bowed to. Still, maybe you’re right—where is it written that you can do what I’ve done? And I can hardly blame you for choosing your own path. Thank God I didn’t follow my old man like he followed his.”
Though he could not see Ben’s face, Adam heard a note of satisfaction mixed with dread, as though Nathaniel Blaine might still pull Ben by the collar into the life he had fought to escape. “What was he like?” Adam asked. “I can’t remember much.”
“Limited,” Ben said flatly. “They all were. Granted, they had a certain mulish persistence that might have passed for character—through a century of lobstering, they stuck with it, no matter how hard the life. Their problem was tunnel vision. Each took those same traits of character and did the exact same thing, generation upon generation. From the age of five, I set out to be different.”
Something in Ben’s claim of uniqueness nettled Adam. “So did Jack,” he said.
Ben laughed under his breath. “Jack? All he managed was getting out of the water.”
It was always like this, Adam thought—his father determined to have him perceive his uncle as smaller than Ben himself. “He did more than that, Dad. Jack’s woodworking is special. He’s an artist, like Teddy.”
“Yes,” Ben answered tartly. “On a rock off the coast of Massachusetts, fifty square miles. This is a place to come back to, not to define the boundaries of a life. The world has too much to offer.”
Adam felt the familiar stab of ambivalence mixed with admiration. His father was ever on the lookout for places that bared the nature of man at its noblest and most terrible—in Vietnam, Cambodia, Kosovo, Nigeria, the West Bank, Lebanon, the Sudan. He had embedded himself with American troops during the Gulf War, followed the Afghan rebellion against the Soviets, forging lifelong bonds with a legendary operative for the CIA. It was as though he were engaged in a worldwide game of dare—danger, tragedy, and war had always drawn Benjamin Blaine.
But equal to Ben’s hunger for experience was his iron will to record it with merciless clarity. “Whatever you do,” his father continued, “dream big, take risks, and work harder than whoever else is doing the same thing. Do you know why I’ve succeeded? Not because of talent—I’ve known writers more gifted than I am. But I was driven to wring every molecule out of whatever talent I possessed. Success is not something you aspire to—you have to grab it by the throat.
“There’s a story about Bobby Kennedy I’ve always loved. When Bobby was attorney general, he set out to jail the crook who ran the Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa. One night Bobby worked on the Hoffa case until two a.m. Driving home, he passed the Teamsters Building, and saw the light on in Hoffa’s office. So he turned around and drove back to work.” Chuckling with fondness for the image, Ben concluded firmly, “There’ll be people better and smarter than you, Adam. There always are. Your strength must be to want it more, and let nothing get in the way. They called Robert Kennedy ruthless. But for a few months before he died, when I joined his campaign, I knew Bobby very well, and I can tell you he was most ruthless with himself. That’s
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