Mutual Aid by Ruth Doan MacDougall

As Mercy Wheeler Blodgett says of herself, she seems to be related to almost everybody in the small town of Chiswick, New Hampshire. To those she isn’t, her husband, Bob, is likely to be. Just when a mill closing in 1986 costs the Blodgetts their jobs, this town is suddenly terrorized by an arsonists, and heart attacks may cause Bob his life.

( The title of Ruth Doan MacDougall's new novel, Mutual Aid, refers to the emergency system in which fire departments from neighboring towns assist each other, but it also emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of all people, whether they are family, friends, or, as with Mercy and the young man who has become her pen pal, strangers at the outset. The word 'aid' summons up the word 'AIDS,' and this, too, is part of the story.)

Ruth is the recipient of the New Hampshire Writer's Project Lifetime Achievement Award, and Professor Ann Norton of St. Anselm College said in her nomination, "Critics have accorded her high praise for her spare yet lyrical realism. To my mind, MacDougall is the quintessential New Hampshire writer..."

Ruth Doan MacDougall was born and grew up in New Hampshire, where she lives with her husband, Don. In addition to writing novels, she updates her father's hiking books.