Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at Truro; the sandy fist at Provincetown, behind which the State stands on her guard, with her back to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her  Bay, boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap of earth, ready to thrust forward her other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann

Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

The New England Gothic stories, The Maidenhead Quilting Circle and The Boston Embalming College, take place Massachusetts in 1880.  Lucyette ‘Lucy’ Hathorne, the sixteen-year-old protagonist, lives in Maidenhead, Massachusetts, a Cape Cod fishing village. Lucy and her friends form the Maidenhead Quilting Circle live idyllic existences until two events bring their little community to its knees.

Cape Cod has a rich history and was among the first places settled by the English in North America. Much of the east-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. The early industrial revolution occurred through much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island , and mostly bypassed Cape Cod. As a result, the Cape developed as a large fishing and whaling center, populated by hardy fisherman and their families.

The events of The Maidenhead Quilting Circle force Lucy to leave her village for Boston. As opposed to rural Cape Cod, by the 19th century Boston had transformed itself from a small town to a vibrant cosmopolitan center. Boston was one of the largest manufacturing centers and international trade centers in the world.  In 1880 Boston had rebuilt itself after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 . Lucy finds a world of massive public structures, elegant homes and a rigid social class.

Boston's "Brahmin elite" developed a particular semi-aristocratic value system - - cultivated, urbane, and dignified, the ideal Brahmin was the very essence of enlightened aristocracy.  He was not only wealthy, but displayed suitable personal virtues and character traits.  The Brahmin had high expectations to meet: to cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. Scandal and divorce were unacceptable and strong extended family ties present in Boston society buttressed the social system. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges, and had their own way of talking . Heirs married heiresses, a theme explored in The Boston Embalming College .

From the mid-to-late-19th century, Boston flourished culturally. Nicknamed “The Athens of America,” Boston was renowned for its rarefied literary culture, colleges and universities, and lavish artistic patronage, an alien world for my protagonist, Lucy Hathorne.

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