Hard Way

The story of how the author built the rundown weekly Star in Kennebunk, Maine, into a prize-winning crusader for open government and environmental responsibility in the face of awesome political and commercial pressure.

Unlike many who have bought small-town weekly newspapers, Brook was a New York City executive without a journalistic background when in 1958 he and a partner acquired the Kennebunk Star in Maine. Twenty years and several partners later, he sold the newspaper (the New York Times now owns it), his borrowed $30,000 investment returning more than $1 million in profit. In this memoir Brook recalls his daring exposes of the malfeasance of local politicians, who were often his neighbors. The Kennebunk Star won regional and national awards as well as a letter of commendation from the Nieman Fellows at Harvard. Especially memorable is Brook's defense of an unpopular, obnoxious local gadfly named Herman Cohen who correctly challenged such seemingly innocuous matters as the purchase of an ambulance with tax money, re-zoning and the like. Journalists will love this delightful reminiscence. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The gritty memoir of a rugged individualist whose 20-year stint as proprietor of a debt-burdened community newspaper in coastal Maine was soul-satisfying--if less than idyllic. In 1957, Brook (then 35) forsook a secure niche as a Manhattan business executive and borrowed most of the $30,000 he needed to buy Kennebunk's York County Coast Star. While he soon restored the run-down weekly's long-lost credibility with on-the-ground reporting and contentious editorials, he endured the constant financial pressures imposed by a backwater market largely reliant upon the summer tourist trade. Brook nonetheless managed to make his award-winning journal a force to be reckoned with in the small towns it served. A born boat-rocker, he crusaded against venal politicians, crooked lawyers, aberrant zoning decisions, heedless utilities, developers with little care for the fragility of the local environment, and other targets. Here, using generous samples of his own work and that of colleagues, the author also recalls the high costs (personal as well as business) of taking on the Down East establishment. Over a two-decade span, the enterprise grew without ever prospering, thanks in no small measure to the publisher's in-your-face approach to readers and advertisers. For years, the Star masthead featured ``T.H.W.T.B.'' as a banner slogan; depending on their identity, those who asked were told that the cryptic initials meant either ``The Hard Way's the Best'' or ``To Hell with the Bastards.'' Eventually, the going got too tough even for the resilient, resourceful Brook, and he (along with a pair of minority partners) sold out for over $1.6 million. H.L. Mencken once enjoined the press to comfort the afflicted- -and to afflict the comfortable. Brook's lively, unsentimental account of how he struggled against the odds to abide by this demanding credo makes for an engaging and entertaining, if cautionary, tale. (Maps, eight pages of photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Brook tells a lighthearted story of personal perseverance, of how he abruptly left the urban jungle of New York City to try his hand at a new career in Maine. He takes us through mid-career crises, divorce, and remarriage, as he takes over a failing weekly paper in Kennebunk, learns on the job how to be a publisher, and transforms the paper into the York County Coast Star. Brook provides a lot of details but does not provide enough meaningful introspection for the reader to understand his motivation or his struggle as a journalist. A captivating but superficial yarn.
- Abraham Z. Bass, Northern Illinios Univ., Dekalb
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.