Dark Harbor House (2001) is Tom DeMarco's first work of mainstream fiction, published by Down East Books. Set in a once-grand Maine island summer cottage in the late 1940s, the novel weaves a love story with the history of the house and its eccentric cast of characters.
The novel reveals a side of DeMarco largely invisible in his technology writing — a literary sensibility drawn to character, place, and nostalgia. DeMarco, who lives in Camden, Maine, would go on to write several more novels, including the-one-way-time-traveler and the Dark World Chronicles series, as well as lieutenant-america-and-miss-apple-pie, a collection of short stories published by Down East Books in 2003. The fiction career is notable because it runs parallel to the reflective-era of his technology writing, suggesting that DeMarco's growing ambivalence about software engineering (culminating in software-engineering-an-idea-whose-time-has-come-and-gone) coincided with a turn toward literary pursuits.