The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman is a delightful little romantic comic novel.
We first meet Natalie Marx, the heroine of The Inn as Lake Devine, as a young girl, who lives in a tight-knit Jewish family in Newton, Massachusetts. The year is the early 1960s. While exploring a resort for a summer vacation, her mother writes a letter of inquiry to the Inn at Lake Devine, which is situated on a beautiful lake in scenic Vermont. Ingrid Berry, the owner and manager of the Inn, writes back stating that the clientele at the Inn is for gentiles. This seems to be Natalie’s first experience with anti-Semitism. It also convinces her that she absolutely must find out what is so great about this particular Inn.
Soon after this event, the Civil Rights Act became the law. Young Natalie began a campaign to flood the Berry’s letters reminding them that they could no longer restrict their clientele to only gentiles.
Later, while at summer camp, Natalie meets Robin Fife, whose family just happens to vacation at the Inn at Lake Devine each summer. Natalie befriends Robin, even though she finds Robin a bit dull. She devises a scheme to get herself invited to go to the Inn with Fife family for a week’s vacation.
Flash-forward 10 years. Natalie is now a professional chef who is between jobs. Natalie and Robin have more-or-less lost track of each other when Natalie learns that Robin is working in Boston at the Pappagallo store on Newbury Street in Boston. (How well I remember this store!) Natalie learns that Robin is engaged to marry Nelson Berry, son of the infamous Inn at Lake Devine. Robin insists that Natalie attend her upcoming nuptials, which will be held at … (wait for it) the Inn!
Natalie returns to the Inn for the wedding and, on the way to the event, Robin is killed in a tragic car accident. With family gathered for the wedding, the family decides to hold the funeral there instead. Natalie stays for the week, cooking for the grieving families where she befriends Kris Berry, the groom’s younger brother.
She hopes that her budding friendship with Kris will develop into something more. Her parents aren’t thrilled with her involvement with Kris because not only is he not Jewish, but at least 1 member of his family is anti-Semitic. They fail to give Natalie messages and letters from Kris.
Ultimately, Kris and Natalie get together and go off to a resort in the Catskills with Nelson and his college friend Linette. Linette’s family runs a kosher resort in the Catskills and she is engaged to a rabbinical student. She and Nelson, however, renew their friendship as Natalie and Kris’s relationship blooms.
I liked this book, however, the ending was a little too trite. Nelson quickly became involved with Linette so soon after Robin’s death. This seemed very callous.
There is a brief, but interesting, #MeToo incident between Natalie and her influential boss. He tacitly promises to provide her with job opportunities in exchange for sexual favors. Natalie declines his “offer”, but this passage was written 20 years before such actions were even remotely being taken seriously by the public at large.
Read: February 26, 2020
4 Stars
