Lowering Days

Brothers David Almerin Ames, Link, and Simon grow up on a rugged stretch of Maine's Penobscot River shoreline, land they are convinced belongs to them. Their love of the natural world comes from their parents. Their father, Arnoux, is a romantic artist who once walked away from the American military during the Vietnam War and builds boats by hand. Their mother, Falon, is an activist reporter who runs The Lowering Days, a local paper that gives indigenous and non-indigenous concerns equal space.

The family's world shifts when a mill that was once the Penobscot Valley's biggest employer, but has since gone bankrupt, is destroyed by fire just before it was set to resume operations. Falon then receives a letter from a teenager of the Penobscot Nation admitting to the arson. The young person presents the act as a form of justice for a holy river that has long been poisoned by toxic waste.

As the fire is judged in sharply different ways, the community splits along new lines, and the rift hardens into a cycle of violence.