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). “A generous story about the quiet heroism of older women. . . . This heartwarming novel will help to brighten a bleak January.” —The Times (UK) 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?
"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?"--
