Sweet Vidalia

Sweet Vidalia, by Lisa Sandlin (UK Release December 3, 2024), takes us to Texas, in 1964. When her husband, Robert, dies, Eliza has to confront the devastating fall-out of his duplicity. Blow after blow lands in the days following his death, shattering her, and devastating her children. She’s left with nothing, not even grief.

Rather than stew in the pity and gossip of her old community, Eliza spins her neighbours a yarn and relocates to somewhat less grand accommodation. She’s woman in her fifties, stoic and resourceful, a product of the depression and the war years, adrift in the 1960s just as they are starting to swing. There’s a new freedom rising, but it’s for the young and the carefree.

Her new neighbours are not the kind of people she’s used to mixing with, they are younger and – to her – strange, all stumbling towards their future as best they can.

As she tackles her problems pragmatically, Eliza become aware of her strength, her capacity for endurance. This isn’t what she imagined for herself, but if she can make it from day to day then that might be enough to prove to herself that she is not yet defeated.

This is a lovely, warm, and hopeful book, beautifully written with economy and a rare eye for human frailties. It’s a celebration of the resilience and power of women. Eliza is a fabulous character, she’s so still and noble, taking her small pleasures where she can, reaching that little bit further every day as she comes to recognise her abilities and her ambitions. Emerging from the role of housewife she finds a new vividity to her days, coloured more than a little by uncertainty and fear, but coloured nevertheless. Sustained by her new friendships she discovers her wings.

I kept Eliza close though my reading of the book - we shared that initial horror and grief at her loss of Robert and the subsequent stunned anger – and I watched in pleasure as she built herself up to a place of peace and reflection.