The Great Summer Read Is Here

When did you first learn about Maude Terry, the founder of Azurest, and about the rest of Sag Harbor’s history?

Growing up, my knowledge of the history of the community was limited to “black people started coming out here in the ‘30s and news spread by word of mouth” and “Terry Drive and Richards Drive are named after people who came out here in the early days.” We didn’t have, like, Founder’s Day, where the lore was passed down. We took the uniqueness of the place for granted. I’m glad she has her own memorial now, on Azurest Beach. Most of the Sag Harbor history in the book comes from reading up on things, digging here and there.

Part of growing up there is you don’t appreciate there aren’t a lot of black enclaves like Azurest around the country. Summer communities. You don’t appreciate that Sag Harbor was a stop on the underground railroad, and its earlier whaling history. Part of the challenge of the novel was getting the history down and the atmosphere right, in ‘85—what it was like to be out there before what we know as the Hamptons encroached upon the place, and to preserve that quaint era. I brainstormed with my younger brother Clark to remember all the stores I used to go to, how quiet it used to be.

You write of Benji walking to his job as an ice-cream scooper on the Long Wharf, along the beach at Azurest, Havens Beach, the Corner Bar—all still there. So is Big Olaf’s on the Long Wharf, the model for Jonni Waffle, the ice-cream shop with the “waffle-cone aroma” where Benji works. Your descriptions are deliciously stomach-turning. (Read the precursor to that chapter, “Eat Memory, I Scream,” from the July 16, 2006, New York Times Magazine, here) Do you really hate ice cream now?

I washed dishes at the old Sandbar restaurant on Main Street—it was a fried clams and hamburgers and cod and flounders—and now I hate washing dishes, and I scooped ice cream at Big Olaf’s and now I hate ice cream…there’s a trend! So yes, I still hate most sweets, after gorging myself on ice cream every shift.

The Bay Street Theater used to be a disco. You write about that in the chapter you call "Breathing Tips of Great American Beatboxers." Any “real” memories?

In real life, the club was called Bay St.—and before it was a club, it was a roller disco, although I can’t remember the name of it. The club booked some great acts, and the crowds spilled over into the ice-cream store where I worked, so it was a bit of a pain. In terms of music, I was mining a more Smiths-Birthday Party-Sonic Youth sort of vein back then, but it was hard not to get caught up in the enthusiasm of my friends when people like Steel Pulse or UB40 came through. When UB40 played in ’86, the club was short-handed, so they recruited some of our gang to be bar-backs for the night, which allowed me to spill gin and tonics on people and snatch their drinks before they were finished with them. It’s a hard job!

It was a strange location for a club, because the town was so quiet back then. When there was a big concert, the whole wharf and Main Street became transformed. Now it’s hard to picture how those big trailers showing up and Tina Turner coming out could change the town. Because we were underage, the club was an endless source of fascination. Our older sisters would tell us how great it was. We’d scheme and try to get in, roughriding the bouncers for months to get inside. All we had to bargain with was ice cream, our only luxury good. Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam and U.T.F.O. did come in, and we gave them free ice cream. It was such a weird and lovely time.