FOR THE GRAPE SEASON

A good deal of the story of this book is startlingly improbable- but it is this same unworldly quality which also produces some scenes and personalities of considerable emotional power. A group of Armenians, their children, and a stallion come to a small Vermont town to help with the grape harvest. The town distrusts these aliens-but is talked into accepting them by the widow of the town minister. Most of these scenes involving the Vermonters are quite stiff- but those in which the Armenians appear are very different and exotically flavored with tribal life. The core of the book concerns the courtship by bachelor Bedros, the owner of the stallion, of a widowed farm woman with a mute daughter. It provides a love story with an extraordinarily touching, rough quality- as if the reality of the two characters emerged in spite of themselves, the writing, and the differences of culture and customs. There is a secondary love affair which comes to a climax during Bedros' splendid wedding, and it is capped by an incredible flood which reveals a secret about the town which is supposed to make it accept both interracial marriages. But if the town, and the reader, cannot accept Bedros without miracles- it is too bad. He is a fine creation.