Water Dressed in Brown

He grew up there, surrounded by marshes, pines and salty days on the ocean. Dan O’Hare’s family was Ocean Pines’ very first residents—long before the neighborhood’s streets were paved or its canals fully dug. “I remember when there wasn’t another house in sight,” he relates. “We watched it all come to life.”

Now living in Salisbury, Dan has built a life and creative career rooted in the rhythms of the Eastern Shore—coaching lacrosse, writing, filmmaking, running a real estate firm and exploring stories that connect people to places.

His novel, Water Dressed in Brown, revisits the landscape of his youth through a fictional lens. It’s a coming-of-age story set in early-1990s Ocean Pines and Ocean City, before cellphones, streaming and social media. “It takes place during the waning days of the analog age,” he says.

The story follows two teens—Laura and Trey—as they navigate friendship, love, and a life-changing summer. “It’s nostalgic but also timeless,” says Dan.

Water Dressed in Brown is both a homecoming and a reflection—a chance to rediscover what it meant to grow up along Maryland’s coast, when the world felt smaller and everything felt possible.

“It’s fiction, but it’s rooted in truth,” Dan says. “The places are real; the feelings are real. It’s the Shore the way I remember it—beautiful, messy and full of change.”

Music, Memories & Meaning
Dan’s novel is layered with symbolism. Character names and scenes carry deeper meaning. “On the surface, it’s a story about love and growing up,” he says. “Beneath it all, it’s about nature versus society, free will versus circumstance, and how we decide who we become.”

The book’s title is from an Ani DiFranco lyric, and music ripples through the narrative. “Every song in the story connects to a moment,” Dan explains.

He created a Spotify playlist for readers (search Water Dressed in Brown), featuring Pearl Jam, Ani DiFranco and other artists whose music lends a soundtrack to the story. “The songs are almost like a second narrator,” he says. “They carry you through the book.”

Dan’s own creative soundtrack hasn’t been linear. A trained filmmaker and former MTV producer, he spent years in New York City before returning to Maryland. He and his wife, Caroline, moved back to Maryland to start fresh after 9/11. “We decided to reset,” Dan relates.

When his father suffered a major stroke shortly after, Dan stepped into a caretaker role that again shifted his perspective. This period led to his memoir, Tell Me the Truest Thing You Know, about sports, family and mental health.

Writing Water Dressed in Brown came later, born from quiet laps in the pool. “I was swimming a lot, and you can’t look at your phone underwater,” Dan jokes. “You’re alone with your thoughts. That’s where the story started forming.”

Helping guide Dan’s journey was editor Jaime Coyne of New York City-based Kevin Anderson & Associates. Throughout the process, Dan also met with a lacrosse player he once coached, Ryder Myrick, who encouraged him to keep on with the pages, in which the Eastern Shore is a quiet character.

“The ‘rickety house’ in the story is a real place—a crumbling home where vines and trees grew through the walls,” Dan says.

“Nature was literally reclaiming it. That image stuck with me.”

The novel’s title and recurring motif—coffee—also carries weight. “In the book, every time the characters drink coffee, something changes,” he relates. “It’s about transformation, about the small rituals that mark growing up.”

For all its symbolism, Dan says the story’s core is love. “It’s about the love between mothers and daughters, between friends, between people who don’t always know how to love the right way,” he says. “It’s about how we change each other just by being in each other’s lives.” CS