Any marriage that makes it past 30 years could reach a point where a few surprises might be welcomed; however, Eliza Kratke does not relish the unexpected on that February day when her husband, Robert, collapses in the driveway, the first of many world-shattering surprises in Eliza's life. Eliza's candid voice and indomitable spirit are the drivers of Sweet Vidalia by Lisa Sandlin (The Bird Boys), a well-paced novel that puts readers in the position of benevolent neighborhood gossip, privy to the details of a good woman's unraveling. Eliza does not unravel, however, and though some of the circumstances may seem unbelievable, her transformation feels both inspiring and true. In the moments after Robert's death, Eliza wishes herself back to the "ordinary times lived over and over," but she knows that is impossible; instead, she lingers, knowing that "[t]o leave this hospital room was to leave him behind. Leave her marriage behind. On the other side of its threshold, she was a widow."
Having no other choices, Eliza does exactly that. As a woman alone in the 1960s, she must contend with the common experiences of grief and loss as well as the thoroughly uncommon ones, those born out of the many and catastrophic secrets Robert kept from her in the later years of their marriage. Though these revelations threaten to capsize Eliza, she gradually emerges from the fog and charts a course she never would have imagined without this complete upheaval of her life. Losing Robert, it turns out, would require crossing a greater threshold than she could realize in those first moments. Forced to rent the house she desperately needs to sell, Eliza moves into the Sweet Vidalia Residence Inn, across town in Bayard, Tex. And it is from there that she discovers the woman she never knew she could be.
Though Eliza's Southern dialect can feel somewhat out-of-sync with the voice built in the close third-person narration, readers will marvel at Sandlin's descriptions, as seen in Eliza's tears over "the grooves worn in the downturned corners of her father's mouth, for his mind emptied in the last, bespattered-shirt years." Similarly, they will celebrate every unlikely success Eliza manages, with fans of Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café hearing the echo of "Towanda!" in this empowering story of one woman's midlife coming-of-age. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian
Shelf Talker: Sweet Vidalia is perfect for fans of Southern fiction where a woman left with nothing but her wits and spirit manages to conquer every obstacle and find strength in unexpected places.