The Country of the Pointed Firs

Behind on a long piece of writing, the summer lodger rents the empty village schoolhouse, hangs her hat on the entry nail like a small scholar, and sits at the teacher's desk. The work does not get done. Captain Littlepage climbs the hill to tell her about a place near the top of the world. Mrs. Todd, herb-gatherer and widow, sails her out by dory to Green Island, then up to the headland where the pennyroyal grows and tells her why that ground is sainted. Offshore, on thirty acres of rock, a woman named Joanna once landed alone and stayed.

Nothing is hurried and nothing is raised above speaking voice. A cornerstone of American regional writing, and a village you end up having lived in.