No Room for slippage - Available now

No Room for Slippage - By Gabrielle Rilleau

Gabrielle Rilleau has written a book about growing up in Provincetown and it is no casual memoir, no set pieces, no dogged focus on the self. Rilleau conjures up a true lost era filled with the real characters and eccentrics, pilgrims and townies, that in their own way were (and still are) architects of this storied place. I am an erstwhile Townie, and in the pages of her book I come in contact with every one of these marvelous people (my grandfather was one of them) whom we loved, despite the sometimes odd and cantankerous moments as they danced to a score of different drums. But as happy as I am for this book, I won’t continue down this private lane of personal appreciation. I don’t want the reader to think that this is any way a book of small interest. Rilleau has given us a gem.

At one point in the book Rilleau describes her artist father carving on a piece of lignum vitae, a very hard surface. With sound and sight, we are given his each tap of the mallet against the chisel, the delicate shaving, his hands holding a reverence for the holy aromatic wood. It would not be a far reach to say this might be the manner in which this book was brought forth. Rilleau indeed writes with the careful precision of the sculptor, delicate, but her tools are the wedge and hammer when she needs them. Yes Provincetown is a place where kids play on the beach and squeal with laughter, but she knows that it is also a place of unforgiving storms, where you had better grab the oars and pull against the waters.

The marvel of the poet here is her keen sensibility that misses nothing about the town and its people, from her earliest years to the present. Rilleau registers everything, from the fine grain on a piece of driftwood, to the ever-recurrent tensions as her family prevails in staking their considerable place in the town’s true fabric. She selects with an artist’s eye and paces the arc of the book with narratives, some of which are vignettes or portraits, and some are descriptions that stride the length of the book in careful placement, telling the long story in its varied pieces. she creates the gentle, rising arc that keeps the reader moving forward, not only in chronology but in event, and she portrays the many wonderful colorful denizens of the town, Phat, Popeye, Crazy Helen, and the rest with love and humor. And yet another character emerges as a scene-stealer: The Atlanta. It’s a boat. A fishing boat. That’s how good this book is - even a fishing boat has a life, even a fishing boat can torque a plot. If you know Provincetown, this will be a great read for you. It’s a gift for all of us.

— Frank X. Gaspar, author of The Poems of Renata Ferriera and The Holyoke

“In Gabrielle Rilleau’s new book of poems, No Room for Slippage, Provincetown is the home to which “you forever return/to forget/ and to remember”, and in her telling it is indeed memorable territory, located somewhere between Steinbeck’s Cannery row and Wilder’s Our Town. Time shifts seamlessly, the past and the present morphing into one long tale with many vivid variations. Rilleau is a docent of memory, leading the fascinated reader through a gallery of deeply affectionate portraits from a place and a time that add up to more than mere nostalgia. You can call it a memoir, if you want, or local history. I call it love.”

— Tom Centolella, author of Almost Human

“No Room for Slippage, Gabrielle Rilleau’s moving poetic memoir of growing up in Provincetown, Massachusetts is both an intimate family saga and a loving album of reflections on the remarkable men and women who made up the extended family of Provincetown itself. In this exquisite portrait of place, Gaby Rilleau has also immersed us in the flavor of an historical and artistic moment in the world that still holds for her — and which she shares with us — those consolations of growing up so deeply rooted in the home place of one’s past. For Gaby Rilleau, these pages become a delicate hymnal of thanks and praise.”

—David St. John, Author of The Last Troubadour

About Gabrielle

Gabrielle Rilleau, daughter of artist and leather crafters, grew up in Provincetown during the 1940’s and 50’s, It was a time when its fishing fleet was thriving, artists were struggling, and voices of children’s play sang from every corner in town. It was a time when the town had its own electric power plant and the interdependence and independence of the dwellers fashioned the core of life. A time when clocks ran slower, giving time for net mending and storytelling…spinning of yarns. summer People from over the bridge and beyond were a source of curiosity, entertainment and additional livelyhood. The mix formed an ever-changing dance of the town’s demography with colorful choreography.