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Review by Cynthia Riggs
"Up Island" is a book to read slowly. Word by word author Anne Rivers Siddons builds a powerful, lyrical story of an abandoned wife making a new life for herself.
Molly Bell Redwine, Atlanta wife, mother, and daughter, flees to a friend's house on Martha's Vineyard when her husband of 20 years leaves her for a younger woman. From her earliest childhood, her mother had drilled into her the importance of family. Now, with her family splintered, she must rebuild her shattered beliefs. When the summer season ends, she moves into a small cottage Up Island in Chilmark where she is responsible for two crotchety swans and the owner's invalid son.
"Up Island" (a term from sailing days meaning the westernmost part of Martha's Vineyard, or upwind) deftly weaves a strong feeling of place with Molly's shifting moods. Her need to get on with her life is summed up in a description of Wasque, a wild beach on the southeast corner of Chappaquiddick: "Because of the reflections in the shining slicks, and the radiant spume that the wind blew off the tops of the breakers, nothing seemed corporeal or solid; everything was in motion, restless, breathing, murmuring, shifting."
It is always a delight to read a book set in a place one knows well, and to recognize that the author not only sees the wonder of the place but has the language to describe it. As a twelfth-generation Vineyarder, I marvel at the way Anne Siddons has captured the sense of mystery of this island. Her descriptions of the sea, of the autumn woods and ponds, the Chilmark moors, Menemsha fishing docks, the weather, the seasons, and the effect all this has on Molly, are true.
Another quote: "I talked of moonlight on the water off Menemsha, and stars that fell flaming from a crystal sky into my pond, and about the fires that burned in the Beetlebung trees and the magic in the old gray stone walls of Chilmark, and about guinea fowl and geese and swans and gargantuan dancing statues and the clean silver smell of newly caught fish on Dutcher's Dock, and about the rich, silent past that still lived and breathed on the old houses and the little gated lanes Up Island."
Some books one can devour in a single reading. "Up Island" is a book to savor.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.