Kirkus Reviews QR Code
DAYS OF STEIN AND ROSES by Martie Sterling

DAYS OF STEIN AND ROSES

By

Pub Date: Nov. 5th, 1984
Publisher: Dodd, Mead

For 25 years beginning in the late 1950s, Sterling and husband Ken ran a family style ski lodge in Aspen--and this is her strenuously hyperbolic reminiscence of how it was to leave Eastern country-club ease and found ""Heatherbed"" Lodge. Describing herself and Ken as ""madcaps,"" Sterling doggedly sets out to prove it through a pile-up of laughable disasters--jolly messes in getting there, snafus in getting underway--and a parade of memorable eccentrics. There's 30-ish Sarah Lawrence-product Claytie, with an impressive sex drive and urge to party, and the voice of a ""crazed frog""--and Claytie's ""discovery,"" a bawdy old bird reputed to levitate people ""right in their living rooms."" There are young Norwegians struggling with English and near starvation; a few authors (Leon Uris, the Tynans); a lovely lady who puts out a fire with her sable coat. As the self-identified Perle Mestas of the area, the Sterlings throw party after party for non-paying guests too--not to mention that famous Sunday afternoon performance by skiing great Stein Ericksen, who did his notorious ""flip"" with skis ""the size of boxcars."" Sterling reviews a typical day from the ""gunfire of ski boots on slate floors, to the last highball""; recounts major insurrections of plumbing and sewage systems; and, amid the glib jollies, makes a pitch for the old-fashioned ski lodge (""the shining copper, dancing firelight, charming people. . ."") and its pre-package-deal habitueÉs, the monied celebs and ski bums. Strictly run of the hill.