“Well Out to Sea” Published

Eva Murray. Thursday, Jul-01-10

YEAR-ROUND ON MATINICUS ISLAND
by Eva Murray
Publication date: July 1, 2010
Tilbury House Publishers
ISBN 978-0-88448-331-1
6 x 9, 320 pages

“Want to run away from the ‘real’ world and live on an island off the coast of Maine? Well, Eva Murray will show you that life on Matinicus is very real, and she’ll do this with insight, compassion, feistiness, and just the right amount of humor. Reading this book is almost as much fun as driving the ferry!”
    -- Captain Abe Baggins, Maine State Ferry Service

“As a First Class ship pilot (any tonnage) for nearly thirty years, I had a lot of contact with people on Matinicus Island, where we had a pilot station. I have wished for some time that someone would write a descriptive story about Matinicus and its people. Mission accomplished with Eva Murray’s book “Well Out to Sea.”
    -- Captain Gilbert Hall

What’s it like to live on an island twenty-two miles out to sea? Where there are only three dozen winter residents? Where the local economy is lobstering? Period. Where your most reliable source of transportation off the island may be a small Cessna and the airstrip is dirt (or snow or mud)? Where, if the forecaster says the storm is “headed safely out to sea,” you know it’s coming your way?

Eva Murray moved to Matinicus in 1987 to teach in its one-room school. She married an island man and stayed to raise their family there. Over the years she’s written a number of lively columns and articles for mainland publications. These are the stories of a unique community, of an interdependence that is all too rare these days but necessary for this island’s survival. Murray writes with a keen eye and sharp wit, sharing stories that are sometimes poignant, sometimes mind-boggling, and often hilarious. She lives in a place where, “You love it, absolutely love it here, 51 percent of the time. That is enough to make you stay.”

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Eva Murray first came to Matinicus as the teacher in the island's one-room school. She is a freelance writer, an EMT, runs a small seasonal bakery from her home during the summer, is married to the island's electrician and has raised two children on Matinicus.