And when Ingrid Berry, in the way of most imagined monsters met in the flesh, turns out to be only impossibly and infuriatingly bland, Natalie's plan to crack the code and one day stay at the Inn at Lake Devine is set in motion. When the Marxes summer at another resort on Lake Devine, Natalie convinces her parents that they must pay a visit to the inn-posing as the family Martin-so she can meet her nemesis face to face. While the elder Marxes are willing to forget if not forgive the offending letter from the Inn at Lake Devine (' `You don't go where you're not wanted' '), young Natalie squirrels the note away in a drawer and begins her own secret assault by mail and crank call, directed at the mysterious Ingrid Berry (' `Jewish people and others you have excluded in the recent past must now be welcome at your accommodations. With Natalie Marx tramping down the civil rights road toward retribution in Vermont, anti-Semitism is never handled with anything but careful, if biting, humor-sincere in all unseriousness. Lipman's style, a mixture of chatty gossip, Yiddish zingers and witty social satire, is something of a quaint throwback and much more domestically than politically inclined: Think Jane Austen in the Catskills. In fact, so light is its content that the novel probably should be read tied to the nearest sturdy object-and that is meant as a compliment. Yet in Lipman's capable hands (she is the author of several other popular works, including, 'Isabel's Bed' and 'Then She Found Me'), 'The Inn at Lake Devine' comes across as anything but heavy.

Unfortunately, prejudice, in all its many disguises, is an unusually worthy but often ponderous subject its very weightiness of purpose often threatens to sink otherwise well-written and well-meaning tales. Very truly yours, (Mrs.) Ingrid Berry, Reservations Manager.' ' It is this quietly devastating rebuke that sets Natalie down the winding path of revenge and forever changes the course of all the Marxes' lives. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles. The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922. ' `We do have a few openings during the period you requested.

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman