Love on the Rock: Writing in harmony

It’s 1990. George H.W. Bush is president. Maggie Murphy and David Browne are working in New York’s chaotic publishing industry. Summers in Manhattan are getting old. David’s friend at Entertainment Weekly, Kathy Heintzelman, offers them a room in a shared summer house on Shelter Island with other publishing people.

“Kathy showed us some pictures. We’d never heard of Shelter Island but we said, ‘Yes!’” remembers Maggie, 34 years later. “We paid $600 for the season. Because the house would eventually have editors from rival publications, my editor called it the ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ house.’” 

Maggie and David didn’t have a car so they rode out on the Sunrise Express bus to Greenport, hopped on North Ferry, “where the world would slip away,” and walked up the hill to the rickety house on Summerfield Place.

They awoke to stunning views of Dering Harbor, walked around the Heights and rode their bikes with little baskets to George’s IGA.

Maggie, one of five children, was raised in Woodside, Queens, with a few years living in County Kerry, Ireland. “My parents were immigrants in the 1950s and they returned to Ireland in the late 1960s. I remember my First Communion, second, third and fourth grade years there.”

David grew up in the Jersey Shore town of Hazlet — Bruce Springsteen territory — and in high school moved to Clifton, N.J. He remembers seeing, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” at the drive-in movie theater in Hazlet with Springsteen’s band, Steel Mill, performing the opener.

David’s love of music was born at home while listening to AM radio and the mixtape of his family’s life — his mom’s love of Frank Sinatra, his dad’s love of Big Band, his two older sisters’ love of Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles and even Vanilla Fudge. This love would become the subject of David’s studies and career in writing.

Maggie’s passion for journalism began with her work on the school newspaper at Bryant High School in Queens, along with a nudge from her English teacher, who recognized her writing talent. Seeing WABC Eyewitness News anchor Rose Ann Scamardella — who would become the inspiration for Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannadanna character on Saturday Night Live — further inspired Maggie. “It looked like Rose Ann was having a good time on the news and I wanted a part of that,” she said.

Some couples are fuzzy when asked the details of how they first met. Not these two.

“It was the fall of ‘81 and we met in front of 21 Washington Place in the Village at the NYU student activities center,” Maggie remembered. She was a sophomore at NYU and David was a senior, both staffers on The Courier, the university’s alternative weekly newspaper.

“Our friend Marlon Campbell pointed and said, ‘That’s Dave Browne, he’s a really funny guy.’ I thought he looked more nerdy than funny at that moment, but …” Maggie continued.

While working together on the NYU newspaper, “David would leave little secret messages in my Filofax. I wasn’t sure if it was sweet or an invasion of my privacy, but I went with sweet. I found him funny and cute, so we agreed to a first date,” Maggie said.

There was a revival movie house nearby in Greenwich Village, and David had two cult 1970s films in mind: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the classic horror film and “Harold and Maude,” an existentialist drama about a nerdy guy who has a relationship with a much older woman. Luckily, he opted for the rom-com.

“David had singularly quirky tastes, and he introduced me to a lot of things I never would have been exposed to,” Maggie said. “I introduced him to Irish-American culture. My mom and David shared a birthday, and she just adored him. Our families were both rooting for us.”

Two-and-a-half years later, Maggie and David celebrated their wedding in his parent’s back yard in New Jersey. They moved from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn to a walk-up on Bedford Street in the Village. “It was very modern in the sense that it didn’t have a bathtub in the kitchen,” Maggie said.

What drew Maggie and David to one another? “Maggie has a warmth and sweetness, and an impressive intelligence,” David recalled. “She was a voracious reader with an amazing ability to retain knowledge. She could talk to people from all walks of life, from the restaurant server to eventually Michelle Obama.”

“David was indeed funny and incredibly focused, and that was very attractive to me. He wanted to be a music journalist, he wanted to work at Rolling Stone, and he had the belief he could do it,” Maggie said with pride.

The couple’s careers converged when a news editor position opened up at Entertainment Weekly, where David was working as a music critic. “I sent my editor a note saying I have someone perfect for the job … she just happens to be my wife,” David said. “It’s the biggest compliment you can pay your spouse when they recommend you for a job where they work,” Maggie added. David’s boss was so impressed with Maggie that the nepotism clause flew out the window and she landed the job.

In one of David’s first pieces for Rolling Stone in 1987, he reviewed an album of Loudon Wainwright III, who would become a touchpoint on Shelter Island that David would not yet realize. He freelanced at Rolling Stone for 10 years and has been a senior staff writer at the iconic mag for five years, thus realizing his decades-long dream.

Maggie’s career in publishing has spanned decades and has included reporting and editorial roles at Us, Life, People, Parade, InStyle, J.Crew (yes, there are writers hired to make the names of colors exciting), and Audible, where she currently works as producer and programming lead.

Maggie and David bought their home on the Island in 2000, and two years later their daughter Maeve was born. “Having Maeve deepened our connection to this place because we got to see the Island through her eyes — the library and Camp Quinipet when she was younger and Sylvester Manor, where she worked as a docent as a teenager,” Maggie said. Maeve is now a senior at Hamilton College and has worked on the Shelter Island ambulance crew and at the office of Dr. Josh Potter.

Maggie loves volunteering at the Historical Society Havens Farmers Market, and with the encouragement of Director Terry Lucas at the library, she is now pursuing a Master’s degree in Library Science.

David’s NYU days of writing on the Village music scene gave rise to an idea that has culminated in his eighth book, just published, titled “Talkin’ Greenwich Village.” Through extensive interviews and his deep knowledge, David explores the ebb and flow of the music venues and artists in “America’s bohemian music capital” from the late 1950s to the 1980s. I’m reading it, loving it and again listening to Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin.

Go get your copy of “Talkin’ Greenwich Village” at Finley’s Fiction here on the Island or see David talk about his book at the Shelter Island Library’s Friday Night Dialogues on Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. via Zoom.

In 2025, our country will inaugurate a new president. Maggie, David, Maeve and their Goldendoodle Ellie will continue to come to their home on Shelter Island. “Coming to this Island, and spending time here together, is the great enduring joy of our lives together,” Maggie said. Many things will have changed, but on the Island much will remain the same.