Camera Obscura

You might think of Leonard Olive Keith and Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates as New Brunswick’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn — but a queer Tom and Huck. That notion will certainly cross your mind when reading Len & Cub, a poignant collection of archival photographs that capture them having Twainesque adventures around Butternut Ridge, now known as Havelock. Throughout the book, they appear a besotted couple, bound by an unlawful passion rarely documented so openly a hundred years ago. Using Len’s trusty Kodak, they would take photos of each other, as if declaring their romance in a world that, for a time, blissfully ignored them.

That’s how things seem today anyway. We assume these fellows were in love, but we’ll never know the exact nature of their physical relationship. Is it prurient to wonder if they went all the way? Their families, at least, were too busy trying to make...