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Index Interviews: Ellis Paul Jill McCorkle Build-A-Song Part VI: Tips For Tunesmiths Web Resources for Developing Characters Upcoming Events Calendar Return to This Issue's Index Return to Homepage Subscribe
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General Fiction ReviewsThe Vineyard by Barbara DelinskySimon and Schuster, June 2000.Hardcover, 368 pages. ISBN: 0684864843. Ordering information: Amazon.com. | Amazon.co.uk 
Seventy-six-year-old Natalie Seebring has spent her life
running the family vineyard in Rhode Island. Six months
after her husband dies, Natalie shocks her grown children
by announcing that she is marrying an old friend.
Natalie, unhappy with the
estrangement with her children, decides to write a no-holds-barred
memoir which will reveal her darkest secrets. Natalie hires single mom and
and antique photograph restorer Olivia Jones to assist her in
writing the memoir. Olivia jumps at the chance to spend the
summer at the vineyard with her dyslexic daughter, Tess.
Olivia was deserted by her mother and her husband, leaving
her to fend for herself and her tiny daughter. But summer at
the vineyard is not easy for Olivia. She must act as a buffer
between Natalie and her hostile children, and deal with
the antipathy of the handsome Simon Burke, who runs
the vineyard. Simon lost his wife and daughter in a tragic
accident and is definitely not looking for a replacement family.
As Natalie's past life unfolds in the memoir, lives are
changed as everyone's impressions and long-held assumptions about
Natalie are forever altered. Olivia, a bit of a dreamer, is
powerfully affected
by Natalie's story -- can she find a way to heal the wounds
in the Seebring family and find happiness and a home for herself and
her daughter?
The Vineyard is a powerful and moving novel which works on several levels. At the heart of the story is a fascinating theme about whether the older generation really had it easier than does the modern generation. Life was simpler in some ways for those that lived through the Depression and World War II, but what that generation sacrificed is hard for today's youth to imagine. Natalie's and Olivia's lives have eerie parallels; they have both experienced love, loss, sacrifice and the almost impossible choices that a woman is sometimes asked to make for love. The beautiful Asquonset Vineyard provides a fitting backdrop; the vines themselves must battle the elements in order survive. Delinsky's ability to capture subtle and complex family relationships is in full evidence here, and the story is bound to touch even the most hardened heart. Highly recommended. Return to Book Reviews Index ** To visit the archives of general fiction books reviewed in The IWJ, please click here. |