Correspondence
Nick Fuller Googins’s heartfelt essay “Maine Escapes” [December 2020] struck home for two reasons: I work as an attorney guardian ad litem — a children’s advocate. And I used to be an enthusiastic lobster eater.
Through parallel stories of the “bugs” (nobody in his essay ever calls them lobsters) and the “residents” at the juvenile prison (nobody calls them children), Googins recounts the lives of these precious and all-too-easily thrown away beings. He captures the ups and downs of children in the juvenile system unlike any course on trauma that I’ve ever taken.
I’ve known and advocated for children like Seth, and I’ve known endings like the one Googins recounts, where children feel safer in juvenile detention than at home. When that happens, it is so hard.
Mary M. Davis
Fort Collins, Colorado
Ever since a complimentary issue of your magazine arrived in my mailbox a year and a half ago, I’ve developed a relationship with The Sun that I have with no other publication. Each issue brings excitement — not just for the in-depth interview, but for the engaging stories, poems, and photographs as well. Something always leaves my mind reeling, captures my imagination, or moves me to tears.
In the December 2020 issue it was Nick Fuller Googins’s “Maine Escapes,” about two seemingly unrelated subjects: lobster fishing and juvenile prison. I was delighted to discover the commonality that connected the essay’s two halves: small acts of hope and kindness, so unexpected in those settings.
In February 2021 it was Ethan Hubbard’s photographs [“Salt of the Earth”]. I couldn’t stop looking at the beautiful faces. Most of their smiling, bright eyes looked directly into the camera. I saw no fear or suspicion, only curiosity, happiness, and love.
Gwen Chute
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Nick Fuller Googins’s essay “Maine Escapes” [December 2020] reminded me of the time I cut loose some turtles that were tethered to a fishing pier at a resort in Mexico. The helpless animals were waiting to be sold to restaurants. They barely moved after I cut the ropes, too dazed and exhausted from their efforts to swim free. I had to push them away from the dock. It seemed futile, but I told myself maybe I could save one.
Like Googins, I also worked with at-risk youth. Some of those teens were amazing, others barely likeable, but they were all children who had been hurt. Occasionally I would meet truly gifted kids, and I would try to think of interesting books or creative assignments to inspire and challenge them. Though these efforts also seemed futile, I would think, Maybe I can make a difference for just one child.
Virginia Connelly
Carmel, California
Because I live in Maine, I was eager to read Nick Fuller Googins’s essay “Maine Escapes” [December 2020], but I stopped on the first page: I didn’t want to read a paean to the rugged life of a lobsterman. Though I love many people who earn their livelihoods through the death of sea life, all the killing makes me sad. The lobster buoys that many find charming are, to me, gaudy polystyrene trash polluting our bays — and evidence of suffering.
But I always read every word of The Sun, so I started the essay again and discovered that Googins elegantly brought us a story of imprisonment, freedom, cruelty, kindness, transformation, and hope. It’s one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve read in The Sun.
Zoe Weil
Surry, Maine
By cleverly juxtaposing Nick Fuller Googins’s seemingly disparate jobs, “Maine Escapes” offers insight into the troubling issues of harvesting sea life for human consumption and our failure to combat social issues that can make prison feel safer than the outside world. Googins exposed difficult truths here, but his sensitive writing made the piece a pleasure to read.
Lea Aschkenas
Fairfax, California
More Letters
