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Mill Town has been chosen for “Read ME 2021,” a statewide summer reading experience in partnership with the Maine State Library and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mill Town was nominated by Maine author Gerry Boyle, who wrote:

“My first newspaper job was with the Rumford Falls Times, the weekly newspaper in Rumford, Maine, where I worked for a few months 40 years ago. Just a page into Mill Town the experience of living and working in that extraordinary western Maine community came rushing back. Rumford and its downwind sister town, Mexico, are complicated places, a blend of fierce independence juxtaposed with the reality of a one-employer town. With a native’s experience and an outsider’s perspective, Arsenault explores mill town culture and the human cost of its irreplaceable prosperity. I read the book in very few sittings, feeling that with every page I was gaining new understanding of the community and the people who live. This mill town had an outsized influence on me, including serving as the setting for my first mystery novel, Deadline.  That book was translated into a half-dozen languages as readers across the world found life lessons in a crime novel set in this startling place. Mill Town delivers insights that go far beyond its geographic bounds. It’s an important book.” – Gerry Boyle