Sweet Vidalia

This life-affirming novel follows a fifty-seven-year-old woman forced to rebuild her life, unexpectedly and alone, in 1960s Texas--telling a "wonderfully wise and compassionate story of the extraordinary courage it takes to live a seemingly ordinary life" (Shelley Read, author of Go As a River) and proving "it's never too late to come of age" (Kirkus Reviews).

It's 1964 and Eliza Kratke is mostly content. Married thirty years, she is long settled in Bayard, Texas with two grown children, a nice house, a little dog, and a routine. But her husband has a secret, and Eliza has not been brave enough to demand to know what it is.

So when her husband dies suddenly, the ground doesn't just shift under Eliza's feet--it falls away entirely, revealing that she has known nothing true about her life. How should she come to terms with all that has been a lie?

What emerges from this wreckage is a profoundly compelling portrait of a wonderfully nuanced woman, worn down like a gemstone to a core of durability and self-reliance as she fights for her own path forward. By taking business classes and moving into a hotel filled with aspiring young people, The Sweet Vidalia, Eliza gathers new friends and new possibilities. But with each of these, she finds that it isn't so simple to leave the past behind. Sweet Vidalia not only explores what it means to be honest with ourselves and with one another, but asks: what will we do with the truth when we find it?

Author: Lisa Sandlin
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 12/03/2024
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.70w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780316578004


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/01/2024 pg. 1
Booklist 10/01/2024 pg. 27
Publishers Weekly 10/07/2024
Kirkus Reviews 10/15/2024
Shelf Awareness 12/01/2024

About the Author

Lisa Sandlin graduated from Rice University in Houston, and earned a M.F.A. in Writing at Vermont College. She taught at SMU, Wayne State College, University of Texas, Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey, and she finished her career as professor emerita at University of Nebraska Omaha. Sandlin has written four story collections and four novels, and her work has received an NEA Fellowship, a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Violet Crown Award, and the Jesse Jones Award. Sandlin's noir mystery The Do-Right won both the Shamus Award and the Hammett Prize. Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times chose its sequel, the Edgar-nominated The Bird Boys, as one of the 10 best crime books of 2019. Lisa lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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