This life-affirming novel follows a fifty-seven-year-old woman forced to rebuild her life, unexpectedly and alone, in 1960s Texas—telling a "wonderfully wise and compassionate story of the extraordinary courage it takes to live a seemingly ordinary life" (Shelley Read, author of Go As a River) and proving "it's never too late to come of age" (Kirkus Reviews).
It’s 1964 and Eliza Kratke is mostly content. Married thirty years, she is long settled in Bayard, Texas with two grown children, a nice house, a little dog, and a routine. But her husband has a secret, and Eliza has not been brave enough to demand to know what it is.
So when her husband dies suddenly, the ground doesn’t just shift under Eliza’s feet—it falls away entirely, revealing that she has known nothing true about her life. How should she come to terms with all that has been a lie?
What emerges from this wreckage is a profoundly compelling portrait of a wonderfully nuanced woman, worn down like a gemstone to a core of durability and self-reliance as she fights for her own path forward. By taking business classes and moving into a hotel filled with aspiring young people, The Sweet Vidalia, Eliza gathers new friends and new possibilities. But with each of these, she finds that it isn't so simple to leave the past behind. Sweet Vidalia not only explores what it means to be honest with ourselves and with one another, but asks: what will we do with the truth when we find it?
Genre: Literary Fiction
It’s 1964 and Eliza Kratke is mostly content. Married thirty years, she is long settled in Bayard, Texas with two grown children, a nice house, a little dog, and a routine. But her husband has a secret, and Eliza has not been brave enough to demand to know what it is.
So when her husband dies suddenly, the ground doesn’t just shift under Eliza’s feet—it falls away entirely, revealing that she has known nothing true about her life. How should she come to terms with all that has been a lie?
What emerges from this wreckage is a profoundly compelling portrait of a wonderfully nuanced woman, worn down like a gemstone to a core of durability and self-reliance as she fights for her own path forward. By taking business classes and moving into a hotel filled with aspiring young people, The Sweet Vidalia, Eliza gathers new friends and new possibilities. But with each of these, she finds that it isn't so simple to leave the past behind. Sweet Vidalia not only explores what it means to be honest with ourselves and with one another, but asks: what will we do with the truth when we find it?
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"With her keen understanding of the human heart and a gift for laying it bare on the page, Lisa Sandlin has given us a beautiful story of what it takes to re-build a ruined life from the ground up. Readers will grieve with Eliza Kratke at the shocking upheaval in her marriage. They'll rejoice at her spirit. When they finish the book, they'll miss her. I certainly did." - Elizabeth Crook
"Poignant and uplifting, Sweet Vidalia is a beautifully written tribute to the courage of a woman wounded by life who, through steadfast determination, reclaims her self-esteem, and the joy of living." - Kathleen Kent
"Lisa Sandlin's Sweet Vidalia does what the very best books do. Eliza Kratke shows us with her courageous, steady enterprise how to brave life's blows and start again, and again, every day. She is a heroine of the first order and I wish she lived next door." - Nancy Thayer
"Sweet Vidalia the odyssey of a woman forced to rebuild her entire world. . . . Eliza's warmhearted matter-of-factness is her salvation, and her decision to care less about trust and more about humane survival and keeping her spirit uncorroded is doubly refreshing. Sandlin has written a page-turner of an unapologetically female adventure." - Katherine Vaz
"Poignant and uplifting, Sweet Vidalia is a beautifully written tribute to the courage of a woman wounded by life who, through steadfast determination, reclaims her self-esteem, and the joy of living." - Kathleen Kent
"Lisa Sandlin's Sweet Vidalia does what the very best books do. Eliza Kratke shows us with her courageous, steady enterprise how to brave life's blows and start again, and again, every day. She is a heroine of the first order and I wish she lived next door." - Nancy Thayer
"Sweet Vidalia the odyssey of a woman forced to rebuild her entire world. . . . Eliza's warmhearted matter-of-factness is her salvation, and her decision to care less about trust and more about humane survival and keeping her spirit uncorroded is doubly refreshing. Sandlin has written a page-turner of an unapologetically female adventure." - Katherine Vaz
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