Vacationland by Sarah Stonich (University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
Vacationland is a beautifully rendered portrait of main character Meg and her connection to Naledi Lodge, where she grew up. Her childhood was spent under the care of her gruff grandfather after losing her parents in a plane crash as a young child. Throughout this multi-faceted portrait, Naledi Lodge serves as the geographical touchstone of every story. We see Meg grow up at the northern Minnesotan resort, we experience her grief at losing her grandfather as a young adult, witness her divorce, and applaud her move back to the now-defunct resort, giving it a second life and purpose.
A painter whose main subject is water, Meg practices for an interview with a high school student who asks why she paints water almost exclusively, towards the end of the book:
“In my mind, I paint everything but the water. I report what is captured over the surface, reflected in its mirrors, sometimes still and sometimes fluid and unpredictable or warped, like life. The surface separates halves of above and beneath, the known and unknown.” Meg rereads and sighs. It sounds like art-speak and only approaches what she wants to articulate.
In this way, we encounter Meg. Through reflections, memories, and experiences of others linked to her story, we get a glimpse of what is beneath Meg’s quiet surface. It’s a story comprised of multiple linked stories told from the perspective of different characters: we hear from Meg herself, three now-elderly sisters who visited the resort years before with their husbands and many children, the resort’s caretakers, a quiet Ojibwe man who eventually helps Meg fix up the run-down resort when she moves back for good, her grandfather’s unknown lover, and many more. Meg’s own sections aren’t told in first person; rather it’s told in third-person narrative, holding us slightly at bay, forcing us to understand her through other means. These short sketches contribute to the overall portrait of Meg’s intensely human story with characters rich and fully realized in their own brief segments.
This is a book that reminds me why I love reading fiction so much. I personally enjoy layered stories, and Vacationland lavishes on the layers with heartbreaking realness and refreshingly good humor. Stonich captured me entirely with her winding narrative, circling closer and closer to Meg with each story. She doesn’t give it to us all at once; instead, we patiently wait for each story to reveal it’s connection to Meg and Naledi Lodge. The pacing is deliberate—Stonich starts off with Meg herself, and gets us invested in her character right away to then leave us hanging by the end of this first glimpse. Then, she switches gears entirely to Ed, retired advertising man who had a mid-life affair during a vacation at the resort with his family years prior. We catches snatches of Meg as a child here and there in his story, and become invested in Ed’s story, only to discover his underlying connection to Meg, circling us back to the main character. Then we’re off again, onto another character and their story that eventually reveals a connection to Meg or the lodge.
In an interview with The Next Big Thing (which can be found in text here on Stonich’s website), Stonich explained why she chose a resort as the focal point of this story:
“The idea of a resort from varying perspectives of visitors, proprietors, and locals seemed like a concept I felt worth weaving characters around. In Minnesota, a lot gets written about the wilderness experience, but less about resort life, and very little about the people and the communities that line the roads leading to such places—like the beer truck drivers and bait shop owners. I wanted to tell their stories. But I was also moved to challenge the tired Minnesota stereotype—not all the men in Vacationland are good looking and not all the children are above average—or white for that matter.”
Her characters are definitely not tired, nor stereotypical. Their realness reminded me of people I knew growing up in a small community myself. This isn’t a novel trying to wow us, or woo us. It’s a story that captures the human essence of a community, the gritty changes of passing time, and a main character who makes us work to get to know her.
Stonich uses wit wisely to bring her characters to life. One of the funniest stories is told by the ancient yet fiery Ursa Olson, who, after finding out her daughter has secretly had plans drawn up to remodel Ursa’s house after she passes, strips her kitchen down to the studs in retaliation, even while recovering from a hip replacement:
It began early, when she was supposed to be in town for physical therapy. She wasn’t because Kip Karjala was supposed to drive her and called to say his car was making the same noise again. Ursa offered to limp the half-mile over to look under his hood, but Kip said, “Yeah, Ursa? That would kinda defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”
No matter. She could drive herself, having finally found the car keys in the flour canister where Carina had hidden them. Clever on Carina’s part, Ursa had to admit, given the odds she would ever bake anything. Her daughter was not usually clever—in fact, Carina was quiet unformed in many ways despite her age, despite being a card-carrying member of the AARP.
Ursa settles behind the wheel. The Olds 88 is an automatic, her hip is nearly healed, and she rarely uses the brakes anyway.
Stonich’s wit surfaces naturally, and is unforced. This isn’t a comedic book, but it’s comedic moments add a lightness that fits well with the brevity of each individual’s story, rounding out each character in their own way.
For those wanting a neat, two-word description of the book, I’m sorry to disappoint—this is one that resists categorization. In the previously mentioned interview with The Next Big Thing, Stonich talks about the genre of this novel as a “novel-in-stories though I don’t like categorizing fiction in this way. Originally, the publisher printed ‘novel’ on the cover, but I wanted readers to decide for themselves what it was, so it says nothing.” I personally don’t care what the book is categorized as, as it doesn’t change the way I experienced it. So whether you prefer to think of it as a novel-in-stories, or maybe a portrait made up of brief sketches, bottom line is this: read it. It’ll capture you completely, as it did me.
What other books have you read that are pieced together by varying viewpoints and characters? Is there another author who uses a geographical focal point to tie together a collection of short stories?
