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Read The Inn At Lake Devine (1999)

The Inn at Lake Devine (1999)

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Genre
Rating
3.76 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
037570485X (ISBN13: 9780375704857)
Language
English
Publisher
vintage

The Inn At Lake Devine (1999) - Plot & Excerpts

The Short of It:The Inn at Lake Devine is the perfect summer read. The setting and the characters do not disappoint and it’s surprisingly meaty given its summery feel.The Rest of It:"It was not complicated, and, as my mother pointed out, not even personal. They had a hotel; they didn’t want Jews; we were Jews."So begins the story of young Natalie Marx and her infatuation with the Inn at Lake Devine. Natalie’s mother sends an inquiry to the Vermont hotel inquiring about summer accommodations for her and her family, and receives a polite, but firm note back indicating that the hotel does not do business with Jews. Shocked, but intrigued, Natalie wonders about the person who wrote the note and in her own way, stages a rebellion from afar.However, when Natalie discovers that a friend visits the Inn each summer, she realizes that it’s a chance of a lifetime and manages to get the family to invite her to join them for the summer. Her parents, knowing how this establishment operates, doesn’t want her to go, but her host family insists, so her adventure during that 1960′s summer begins.I can’t really call this a “coming of age” novel because Natalie has a very strong sense of self, even as a young girl, but as she matures, her sense of self deepens and she seems to understand, or perhaps appreciate her Jewish roots more. Natalie is a pleasure to know. She flounders a bit with her personal life, but she never seems the worse for it and her pragmatic way of dealing with life made for pleasurable reading.I’ve heard of Elinor Lipman before but have never read any of her books. The Inn at Lake Devine is my first experience with her writing. Her writing is very authentic with a touch of sarcasm thrown in. The writing is humorous, but not overly so. I especially enjoyed her depictions of “family” and the interactions between parent and child.I was also charmed by the setting. A lakeside hotel in Vermont? I’m so there. I could see the porch, the out-buildings and the shimmering lake. It all felt so genuine to me.As far as pace, I breezed through the book and read it in one sitting. There was one spot where it dragged a tad, and got a bit silly, but not enough to make me want to put it down. The first person narrative threw me off a couple of times. I don’t read too many novels written in this narrative but it seemed to fit.An interesting tidbit…apparently such a letter existed. Lipman’s mother remembered the wording of the letter she received one summer, and it became the inspiration for this story

My wife and mother-in-law are huge Elinor Lipman fans, and after being introduced to her via this novel, it’s easy to see why: she’s smart, funny, incredibly readable, and sweet. It’s rare to find something this enjoyable that’s also this well-written. The novel opens with the Marx family (including our preteen narrator, Natalie) seeking a place in Vermont for a vacation, and receiving a letter from a particular inn (yes, at Lake Devine, Sherlock) stating that, in their experience, the guests who have the most fun at that particular inn are Gentiles. Although the rest of her family moves past this slight, finds another inn nearby, and moves on, Natalie becomes obsessed with the inn, the family who runs it, and even finds a way to sneak into the inn as the guest of a girl she met at summer camp and befriended solely because her family goes to this inn every summer. Lipman has a real gift for dialogue, pacing, and structure making this comedy of manners as taut as Austen or Wodehouse, with nary an extraneous word in her conversations or descriptions. She’s capable of being funny without having to call attention to how funny she’s being, or without pulling the focus away from the characters and the story. To me, the greatest sign of how much you loved a book is how quickly you went out and bought more books by the same author. Suffice it to say that before I even finished this one, we owned several more Elinor Lipman books.

What do You think about The Inn At Lake Devine (1999)?

This pretty much felt like a standard "-ism in the 60's" novel: after learning that a Vermont Inn accepts "Gentiles only", 13-year-old Natalie Marx develops a bit of an obsession with the place and spends the next 10 years of her life connecting herself in one way or another with it.I didn't think the story had anything particularly new to say about anti-Semitism, and the book does a lot of telling rather than showing. I picked this up because I loved Lipman's The Family Man with its sparkling, laugh-out-loud prose; while I don't expect a book about anti-Semitism to be funny, I was disappointed in its lack of sparkle. I found the characters to be rather flat and lifeless, and Natalie's re-introduction into the innkeeper's family seemed so contrived, it actually made me cringe. I'm very glad I'd read something else by Lipman first; I certainly wouldn't recommend this as an introduction.
—Jennie

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman is narrated by Natalie Marx. Natalie's family is Jewish. And in the "enlightened" times of the 1960s, racial barriers are falling. Supposedly. But when Natalie's parents are looking for a place to spend their vacation in the summer of 1962, they receive an answer from Vermont that sounds very much like a challenge to Natalie. The guests of the Inn at Lake Devine are all Gentiles--they're the ones who "feel most comfortable here and return year after year." After her mother shows her the letter, Natalie becomes almost obsessed with the Inn. She is determined to cross the threshold as guest. What follows is a wonderful novel coming of age novel. It is all about growing up with racial and religious differences. It's an insightful commentary on the prejudices and bigotry that kept Jewish people and others out of certain establishments and forced them to create their own places. It shows how one girl's determination can bring understanding to at least a few people. And it does it without being heavy-handed, without hitting the reader over the head with platitudes. It even manages to produce a lovely romantic story along the way.I picked this one up for the Getting Lost in a Comfortable Book Challenge. Not my normal reading fare, but a wonderful story and a very quick read. Natalie is a marvelous central character--someone that I wish I knew in real life. And the supporting characters are just as finely drawn....there are no cardboard cutouts here. Real people facing real problems....and dealing with events in a very realistic way. Highly recommended. Four stars.This review is mine and was first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
—Bev

This book was a very satisfying read. This is a wonderful, almost a comedy of manners, coming of age story. The author shows remarkable perspicacity regarding intergenerational conflict, bigotry, cultural differences, and the eras of the 1960s and 1970s. And I must say I’m always a sucker for any good bad mushroom story.The first and shorter Part 1 was my favorite portion. During that section, I was often laughing out loud; it was hilarious. The section would have sufficed as a stand-alone novella. I probably also really enjoyed it because I do so appreciate stories about young people.I’m so glad that Lipman continued with the story. Part 2 actually felt as though it might have been written at a separate time; the style was somewhat different. I was merely smiling, grinning at times, but did not actually laugh as I did during the first chapters of the book; that didn’t diminish my reading enjoyment however. The personalities of the (very compelling) characters did remain true to themselves, even through the changes they all experienced. I was afraid for a time that the ending would be too abrupt, but the novel came to a very satisfying conclusion, and also left me wanting more, which makes it my favorite kind of novel.I admire anyone who can create such a delightful comedy out of a serious premise: the exclusion of Jews from a restricted vacation property. And I found it fascinating that the author’s mother (revealed in the acknowledgments) had received a similar letter as the Jewish family in this story receives.
—Lisa Vegan

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