In this serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after years in Manhattan to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe loathes Richard Moby, chief of the off-Island landscaping business Broadway. He is irrationally convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, and Island-based nursery businesses in general.

Dear P:

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope the lights are bright on Broadway. Here on the rock, we’re definitely hunkering down in winter mode.

Some good news: Quincas is much better, and has been convinced to move back into his own household, complete with the gorgeous adoring women who are happy to look after him and who I am trying not to be jealous of. It was distressing, how terrified he is of deportation. It’s hard to believe he got arrested for a fistfight; I just can’t see him doing that. But for all the pleasant distraction he offers, I don’t actually know him that well, do I?

I do, however, know my Uncle Abe. Sometimes better than I wish I did, especially since I’m now living at his house. I’d been staying with some cousins in a non-winterized guest room and it got too cold; when Quincas was recuperating at Abe’s, I moved in to help take care of him, and when Quincas moved out, I just stayed here. This gives me a front row seat to witness Abe’s “turning over a new leaf.”

Yeah, there’s a pun in there, but it’s not the botanical one. Abe has made his new year’s resolution to bring Broadway Nursery and its CEO, Richard Moby, to their knees. To accomplish this, he has decided to shift tactics entirely. The second half of 2008 was dedicated to frontal attacks, none of which worked out (fireworks that didn’t explode, a boating accident that only wrecked Abe’s boat, a break-in that only broke Abe’s leg, a legal battle that Moby bought his way out of ... I’m sure I’m forgetting some). So now, for 2009, he is going to try a completely new tack: the spin-doctor approach. His “new leaf” is a leaf of paper — or many leaves, sheaves even, as many as it takes. He is going to spread disinformation about Broadway Nursery with the gusto of a political campaign.

But he’s a busy man, and he can’t really be bothered to investigate Broadway and collect actual information about it. So instead, he has hired an internet-savvy “research assistant” — a guy named Perth (that’s because he’s from Australia; I don’t know what his real name is and I’m not sure anyone does). He has bright yellow hair, longish and a bit stringy, an extremely weathered face but an energy suggesting he is somewhere north of 50, and laughing blue-green eyes. The sort-of-alarming part about this is that Abe has been secretly advertising for somebody just like him; he did not “happen upon” Perth, he brought Perth to the Island for his own purposes.

Having just had dinner with Abe and Perth as they discussed Perth’s new “position,” I’d have to describe Perth as an amoral conman with no sense of decency or honor, but otherwise a really charming chap. Although the words “fabricate” and “lies” never came up in their official conversation, Perth’s job is obviously to fabricate lies about Broadway. These lies will make their way onto various shady “news sites,” but Perth is also responsible for making sure that local Island businesses “get wind of it all” directly.

So I’m in a bit of a quandary. I can follow along behind Perth as he poisons Islanders’ minds, and let them know he’s making crap up ... but I don’t know enough about the Internet to counterbalance whatever he does in cyberspace. And of course I’m torn about this — even though Abe is being a lunatic again, he is my uncle, and he’s deeply invested in this, and it feels awful to undermine somebody who helped to raise me, after all. Mostly, I’m really distressed that Abe is back on his Broadway-mania.

I have to wrap this up now to go pack. Mott, Quincas and I are taking a fieldtrip to the New Bedford Whaling Museum tomorrow, where at noon they will begin a weekend-long “read-a-thon” of Mott’s favorite book: Moby Dick. You know things are dull when you have to turn to Melville for entertainment ... but it’s my first time off-Island since last May, so it’ll be a nice change of scene, at least...

Becca

Be part of the Your Name Here campaign: any person or business donating $250 or more to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services can get a mention in Moby Rich. Please call 508-693-7900, extension 374.

Vineyard novelist Nicole Galland’s critically-acclaimed works include Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade. Visit her Web site, nicolegalland.com, for more on Moby Rich.