The Inn at Lake Devine – Elinor Lipman, 1998

My mother sat next to Lipman at a conference and told me about her. Lipman recommended this novel as the one my mother would like best. So I read it “for her” in a way. I don’t know that Mummy would care for it much, but I loved it. When she’s twelve, Natalie and her family are told they can’t stay at the titular vacation resort because they’re Jewish. Natalie pursues the issue through her teenage years and ends up not only staying at the Inn, but becoming part of the family through a series of accidents and romantic entanglements. In both the Marx and Fife families, the generations and the sexes struggle to understand and tolerate each other. Each person is believable, and even Mrs. Fife’s anti-semitism is that of a real human being, not a cardboard monster. Plus it’s funny and touching, and it features mushroom hunting!

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