by Madeleine Blais
Reviewed by Linda:
Are you fortunate to have a place that means everything to you, that is central to your extended family’s identity, a place that you think about to restore yourself? For Madeleine Blais, who will be honored at the Fifth Annual Samuel Minot Jones Awards for Literary Achievement on April 26, that place was a vacation house on Martha’s Vineyard owned by her in-laws. In this bittersweet tale, she recalls how she and her family spent summer vacations for decades in this ramshackle house without heat, television, or telephone—until in 2014, the house was sold.