Martha's Vineyard Burning

Martha’s Vineyard Burning is a tragicomedy memoir of DAVID DUARTE, a second generation native of Martha’s Vineyard who turns to petty crime at the age of 13 when he discovers that his father is blatantly cheating on his saintly mother with numerous women. It’s the mid-fifties and the Island is a small community and David is a highly sensitive youngster whose embarrassment for his mother and the family—he is one of 4 siblings— increases to a burning rage and resentment against his business-savvy, larger than life father, Manny Duarte. David, a young man with exceptional good looks, has never felt comfortable in his own skin and his increasing alienation from his family causes him to seek close alliances with his school chums who join him in his forays into vandalism, pranks and petty theft. David finds empowerment and self-esteem in his role as ringleader of his small gang of followers.  However, when he comes up with the suggestion to commit arson and set fire to The Tashmoo Inn in Vineyard Haven, the other teenagers reluctantly agree to take part in the shocking misdeed but fail to show up and follow through.

This story takes us through six decades in the life of David Duarte: his troubled youth, his issues with a dysfunctional family, his incarcerations, his drug addictions and hedonist sixties lifestyle, his four marriages and numerous bizarre romantic alliances, his epiphany and 25 years as a Jehovah’s Witness and subsequent break with the congregation. It is an interesting story of one of the descendants of Portuguese settlers who first came to the Cape and Islands on the whaling ships of the 1800s.