chauncey loomis article

Author and cousin Chauncey Chester Loomis died back in March 2009, and here is a nice article on him from the September issue of Arctic, a publication of the Arctic Institute of North America. I never met Chauncey, but got a nice note from him when I compiled SDL's memoirs and letters.

Chauncey, along with his brothers John and Stanley (also an author), were the children of Chauncey Loomis. Chauncey and his sister Sally Loomis Wilson (mother of Peggy and Alison), were the children of John Loomis and Abby Dana. John's brother Chester and Abby's sister Sara were our great-grandparents -- two brothers married two sisters. Complicated, no?

I've had a copy of his book on my bookshelf for too many years to count. I think it's time to read it in his honor.

morning edition

Cousin Jon Loomis is on NPR's Morning Edition this morning, talking about his books High Season and Mating Season, which are set in Provincetown here on Cape Cod. Hear the interview with Linda Werthheimer and read more about it here.

cousin jon strikes again

Am reading cousin Jon Loomis' second mystery novel,
set in Provincetown. Read all about it in
an article from the Provincetown Banner.

cousin jon writes a novel

Visit Jon's blog, too.

From the Publisher:
Provincetown police detective Frank Coffin had been a well-respected Baltimore homicide detective. But when he started having panic attacks at crime scenes and fainting at the sight of corpses, he was forced to pack it in and go home to Cape Cod, where the most gruesome crimes confronting P’towns five year-round cops were usually break-ins, bicycle thefts and domestic disputes. After eight uneventful years, a vacationing TV evangelist turns up dead on the beach at Herring Cove, wearing a wig, a pink-and-yellow muumuu, and a pair of size-twelve pumps. Not to mention the raspberry-colored taffeta scarf strangling his neck. Ordinarily, the Cape and Islands DA’s office and the State Police investigate major crimes on the Cape, but P’town’s powers-that-be are nervous. Coffin’s given a choice by the new police chief: investigate or lose his job. So Frank and his partner, Officer Lola Winters, an ex--army MP, start out on the trail of a killer, visiting the restaurants and tourist spots the evangelist and his wife visited by day, and the drag bars and isolated trysting spots he might have frequented at night. As the body count begins to rise, however, it becomes alarmingly clear that this wasn’t an isolated incident: A killer with an agenda is at large in Provincetown. Tracking a murderer is something Coffin hoped he’d never have to do again, and the experience triggers the same nightmares that plagued the end of his time in Baltimore. And if his life isn’t complicated enough, Frank’s girlfriend Jamie thinks she’s being stalked by an overzealous suitor; his senile mother is stirringup trouble at the nursing home; and everyone in town has a theory about who’s committing the murders. Funny, sexy, and dark in equal measures, High Season is a mystery for anyone who’s ever fallen in love with a seaside town.

Author Description Jon Loomis is the author of two collections of poetry, Vanitas Motel, which won the 1997 FIELD Poetry Prize, and The Pleasure Principle. Twice a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Loomis has also been awarded the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Wisconsin, and has been the recipient of grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. He lives with his wife and son in west-central Wisconsin. High Season is his first novel.