title: Maniac Drifter (Essential Prose)
author:  Laura Marello 
description: Maniac Drifter is a first-rate novel, stylistically alive to the sounds, smells, and sights of unorthodox Provincetown in the 1980s. Marello's new novel shows Provincetown's carnival mindset, disguises, and everyday theater, and forgiveness that shames much of conventional America. The book is rich with the backdrop of Provincetown's history as a fishing community, and artists' community. The young heroine is the witness; her vision is vicarious. She suffers a specific amnesia, which forms the deep mystery of the novel. She is also involved with the central "crime" of the novel that seeks resolution. What she will not remember leaves her non-judgmental but in pain. Only the townspeople in Provincetown can help, almost allowing her to love again, leaving the reader to hope that she will, someday. What a very fine writer, and explorer of people and place we have in Laura Marello!<br />- Paul Nelson, author of Burning the Furniture
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  Judith Ivory
  
  Black Silk
  
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  For Barbara, the book’s first editor  
  and for Carrie, the book’s last.  
  Your support from the start  
  has made the most wonderful difference.  
  I thank you both from the bottom of my heart.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  [I](index_split_004.html#filepos10703)  
  [Pandetti’s Box](index_split_004.html#filepos10703)
  
  
  [Chapter 1](index_split_005.html#filepos11688)
  
  In the billiard room, the mantel clock ticked softly, its…
  
  [Chapter 2](index_split_006.html#filepos31848)
  
  Three weeks later, the matter of the lunatic with the…
  
  [Chapter 3](index_split_007.html#filepos51851)
  
  Submit Wharton Channing-Downes. The name sang like a musical crescendo…
  
  [Chapter 4](index_split_008.html#filepos79760)
  
  Submit, Submit, Submit. All the rest of that morning and…
  
  [Chapter 5](index_split_009.html#filepos101147)
  
  Across London, Graham sat at a dinner party. All around…
  
  [Chapter 6](index_split_010.h