Natalie, the youngest Marx daughter, will literally spend years responding to this rebuff. So begins The Inn at Lake Devine, Elinor Lipman's disarming and very funny exploration of the power of pride and place. Inquiring about summer openings at a Vermont inn, the Marxes receive a killingly civil response, which ends, 'Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles.' Apparently the Marxes are not quite as ideally average as they thought, at least on the basis of their surname.

In the early 1960s, a Massachusetts family suffers a polite awakening. Elinor Lipman is the undisputed master of the art of screwball comedy. Her characters sparkle on the page and delight us with their wit and grace-even when anti-Semitism rears its head in Vermont and the tables are turned in the Catskills. The Inn at Lake Devine will enchant readers with the beguiling voice, elegant charm, and deft storytelling that have been hallmarks of Elinor Lipman's previous novels and have made her beloved by her fans.

And when Natalie finagles an invitation to join a friend on vacation there, she sets herself upon a path that will inextricably link her adult life into this peculiar family and their once-restricted hotel. So begins Natalie's fixation with the Inn and the family who owns it. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles.' It was not complicated, and, as my mother pointed out, not even personal: They had a hotel they didn't want Jews we were Jews.It's the early 1960s and Natalie Marx is stunned when her mother inquires about vacation accommodations in Vermont and receives a response that says, 'The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922.

The inn at lake devine