Friday, May 31, 2013

Vacationland, by Sarah Stonich



Unlike The end of the point, this similarly themed story of a resort in far northern Minnesota was a full of unique and colorful characters.  Granted, I’m prejudiced in favor of the area, which I know well, but even if you have never battled mosquitoes, endured outhouses, or spent your summers at a small, decaying resort, you will love the interwoven stories of the year-round residents and the summer people who have returned through the years to vacation there.  The central story revolves around Meg, who lost her parents in an airplane crash when very young, and her paternal grandfather, Vaclav, the Czech immigrant who owns the resort.  But the cast of characters includes amongst others Meg’s ex-husband, an Englishman; a Sarajevo refugee who is sponsored by two churches who can’t afford “their own refugee;” a young girl who copes with her ADHD by turning situations into haiku; a lonely Ojibwe who is a master craftsman; and Polly, a retired science teacher who arrives at the resort to write a memoir, finds it bores her, and stumbles into a second career as a novelist.  And never leaves.  I didn’t want to either.  288 pp.

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