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BOOK REVIEW: New Hampshire Patterns

Photographs by Jon Gilbert Fox
Text by Ernest Hebert
$29.95 Published by
University Press of New England
Available at Riverrun bookstore, 603-431-2100

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a nice pictorial book of the beautiful state of New Hampshire. It is only deeply jaded booksellers like myself who get tired of seeing the same foliage-themed coffee-table books sell again and again to an endless parade of “leaf peepers.” Whether you’re a native, newcomer or visitor, you understand that the state’s appeal goes far beyond the fall foliage. So if you wanted to create a picture book that really captured New Hampshire, what would it contain?

First you’d have to be sure to include some of the distinctive landmarks that make New Hampshire unique: the Cornish-Windsor Bridge (claimed to be the longest covered bridge in the United States), Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, the Deerfield Fair, the Old Man in the Mountain (oops, too late).  Then maybe add some more contemporary New Hampshire markers such as the Loudon Racetrack, Bike Week in Laconia, and the Ice Fishing Derby in Meredith.

Then, to further capture the flavor of life here, you’d make a section on the presidential primaries, add a portrait of legendary Yankee magazine editor Judson Hale, and include a shot of the home that housed Grace Metalious while she wrote Peyton Place.

Next step? Find an author who exemplifies New Hampshire to write the text for the book. Someone like Ernest Hebert, who has written several novels that perfectly capture the essence of New England, including Live Free or Die and The Old American.  He’s lived his entire life in New Hampshire, and married a New Hampshire native as well. You could ask him to write essays with titles like “Memorial Service for the Old Man,” “Confessions of a Recovering Fly-Fishing Addict,” and “Yard Sale: Harmless or Subversive?”

Finally, you would want to find a good New Hampshire publishing house to produce the book for you. One like University Press of New England, in Lebanon, which has a long history of publishing important books about our heritage and history. You would want a publisher that can accurately produce the scores of color photos that you’ve worked so hard to produce, and one that can create a book with an attractive design and an eye-catching cover. After all, you’d like to see this book on as many coffee tables as possible; you’d like to see this book endorsed by booksellers, and written up in swanky New England lifestyle magazines.

Okay, are you ready to start creating your book? The one that shows the real beauty of New Hampshire? Its lakes, its forests, its architecture, its people? 

Well, I’m sorry to say that it’s already been done by Jon Gilbert Fox in his book New Hampshire Patterns. From the picket fence cover to the final photograph featuring Mount Washington, this book is a strong, grounded, real portrait of New Hampshire. Hebert’s essays paint a picture that is similarly nuanced, filled with humor, nostalgia, and history. With more than 100 color photographs that capture all the best of our state, it never skimps on beauty. However, it also takes great pains to go beyond traditional pictorial photography to provide us with something different: a book for both tourists and residents.

I only wonder why there isn’t a picture of me in there.  Is it because I was born in Maine? Come on, Mr. Fox, maybe in the second edition?