A few years ago, Crash Barry pitched a book about the Maine blueberry harvest and its dark underside to a New York agent.

The response was underwhelming.

“Blueberries? What are you, crazy?” the agent asked. “Nobody is interested in pregnant, pill-snorting single moms raking blueberries.”

Wanna bet?

Barry, a former print and radio journalist from Portland now living in the hills of western Maine, has just self-published a quirky novel, “Sex, Drugs & Blueberries.” He calls his press Maine Misadventures, and he hopes to publish three or four additional titles in the year ahead.

The title of Barry’s book pretty well encapsulates what it’s all about. Barry moved to Eastport in 2004 after winning a writing grant. He hoped to write a book about his time in the U.S. Coast Guard, but that idea didn’t gain much traction.

In need of money, Barry went to work as a laborer in the blueberry fields. In doing so, he met a lot of people who gave him insight into the seedier side of life Down East.

His experiences sparked the idea for a novel. He twisted them into this tale, which focuses on the exploits of a character named Ben Franklin and his blueberry-raking buddies.

Barry, now 42, didn’t last long in Eastport. “Washington County is the most beautiful place in Maine, but it’s a hard place to make a living. I had a hard time there. I got put through the ringer in bizarre ways,” he says.

He and his wife uprooted and moved to the area around Buckfield. That’s where we caught up with him by phone during last week’s snowstorm. 

Q: The obvious first question is, how much of this is autobiographical?

A: I’ve raked blueberries. I’ve had lots of sex, and I’ve done lots of drugs. But the character is not me, and I did not have the things happen to me that happened to him. But when I raked blueberries, I met people who resembled the character in my book. If I took a couple of characteristics of someone and merged him with characteristics of someone else and created a composite character, that would be accurate. These are composites of people and my imagination. It’s fiction.

Q: Why did you name him Ben Franklin?

A: I’m a huge fan of the real Ben Franklin. That’s the only reason why. For writers, Ben Franklin is an amazing person to look up to, I think. I call myself an indie writer. Ben Franklin was an early indie writer. 

Q: Why did you move to Eastport in the first place?

A: I moved to Eastport in 2004 after winning a writing grant. I had been trying to get out of Portland, and the grant gave me the chance to do it. I had worked in Portland a long time, but being a loudmouth doesn’t endear you to keeping employed in the rapidly changing media workplace. So we went down to Eastport, hoping something would take off with the Coast Guard novel I had written. But nothing happened with the Coast Guard novel, because it was a terrible novel. 

Q: And so that’s how you ended up in the blueberry fields — and you got your novel after all.

A: Yeah. I’ve always had to do hard physical labor. That has been the story of my life. I have had jobs as a writer, and then been fired or quit and then I have gone to work in hard, physical labor. 

Q: What happened in Eastport? Why didn’t you stay?

A: It’s a tough place to make a living. We had real hardscrabble times. We were once down to literally $1.50, and then it would snow and I would shovel snow and make some money. 

Q: What do you prefer: journalism or manual labor?

A: Both have their charms. Manual labor is great. When you are done with your job, it’s done. I do demolition, and I love knocking things down. It’s really a lot of fun. But in journalism, especially the stuff I was doing with Casco Bay Weekly back in 2000 and 2001, that was really satisfying and a lot of fun. I’ve had positive experiences in both, but I much prefer fiction writing. But it’s not an either/or. I am still doing journalism. I am writing fiction and nonfiction simultaneously. 

Q: How often do you get back down to Portland?

A: I come down to do errands, drop books off. But I feel very cramped in Portland. An awesome thing has happened. We ended up with this awesome piece of land in the hills of western Maine and a great tiny little house. I can go 20 or 30 days without seeing anybody but my wife and a neighbor. 

Q: Tell me more about how Portland feels when you come back here. What has changed? You obviously knew the city exceedingly well when you lived here.

A: Yes, I did. I wrote a guidebook about Portland called “Portland Undercover” in 2000. I spent 10 years on that peninsula, and there were only a handful of times that I actually left. I never had a car, so I walked everywhere. The most glowing and most obvious difference then and now is the difference between the wealth and poverty. I see a lot more poor people now than I did then. I think the restaurant boom has been both good and bad. All those restaurants weren’t there when I lived there, all the local food wasn’t there. But it seems so much more expensive now. How can you afford to go out and eat $30 entrees? But the art scene is pretty cool, and I like that there is seemingly a lot of young people there. 

Q: Will there be another book?

A: This is the first in a series. There will be another book in June. 

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at:

bkeyes@pressherald.com

Follow him on Twitter at:

twitter.com/pphbkeyes

 

 

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