MAINE CHARACTERS

Thrown together after their father’s death, two half sisters from different worlds find common ground.

When Vivian Levy, a 30-year-old sommelier from New York City, pulls up to her late father’s vacation house in Fox Hill, Maine, she’s confronted by someone she never thought she’d meet. In fact, Vivian wasn’t even sure Lucy Webster actually existed. But there she is, looking both like and not like Vivian. It’s Lucy’s job to inform Vivian that they are half sisters, and Vivian’s job to break the news that their father just died. Hank Levy kept Lucy a secret from Vivian (although she had suspicions), whereas Lucy, who grew up with her mother in Maine, knew about Vivian and always dreamed of meeting her. Unfortunately, it seems that their shared paternity is the only thing the women have in common. Lucy—who rarely spent time with Hank except for every July in the Fox Hill house—idolized her father. Vivian, who was raised on the Upper West Side and had every material advantage, resented her father for never being proud of her and for keeping this giant secret. Vivian wants to sell the house so she can use the money to open a wine bar with her obviously sleazy married boss/boyfriend. Lucy, recently separated from her high school sweetheart, is desperate to hold on to any shred of normalcy, and therefore wants to keep the house—despite, as Vivian constantly reminds her, having no legal claim to it. Orenstein should have edited out several side-plots to streamline the novel to its heart: the growing relationship between the estranged sisters. If you can move past the flawed conceit (no one in Maine would have mentioned Lucy to Vivian?) and the stilted dialogue, Orenstein’s novel has just enough charm to carry it through.

A quick read with some depth.