BOOK REVIEW: The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman

Elinor Lipman is one of my all-time favourite authors and The Inn at Lake Devine is probably her best book. It begins in 1962, when Natalie Marx's parents send out a query about accommodation prices to a small inn in Vermont.  They receive a surprising letter in return, which informs them in polite but anti-semitic terms that they would not feel at home there.  "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."

Her parents are willing to let it lie, but Natalie is enraged- and thus her fascination with The Inn at Lake Devine begins...

The fascination only grows when she infiltrates the inn by making friends with Robin, a girl she considers boring, in order to wangle an invitation on her family's summer vacation to the Inn.  Slowly, and over a series of several years, she finds herself becoming more involved in the lives of the family who run the place, the Berrys- and is determined to one day confront Ingrid, the writer of the letter, exposing her for the hateful racist she is.

If all of that sounds very cloak and dagger, then it's in the politest possible way.  Elinor Lipman has often been compared to a modern-day Jane Austen and she shares the same subtle wit and sly intelligence. This is by no means a revenge thriller- Lipman is more subtle and stylish than that.

You'll have to read the book to see what happens, but trust me when I tell you it's moving, sad, funny and finally hopeful.  The fact that Lipman's mother really did receive a "no Jews, thank you" letter- and remembered the exact wording thirty-five years later- adds extra poignancy.  (But with this wonderful book, I think Lipman gets to have the last laugh).

Rating: 5 out of 5

Like this? Try The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank.

Came straight to this page? Visit www.trashionista.com for more female fiction news, reviews and interviews.