May
2002
Book
Review: Cranberry Queen
Cranberry
Queen
By Kathleen DeMarco
Talk
Miramax Books/Hyperion
New York, N.Y.
$12.95 (paper)
Reviewed
by Mark M. Feffer
Kathleen DeMarco's first novel, Cranberry Queen, is charming,
funny, and unabashedly emotional. While it's not the deepest book
in the bog, it's a fast read of smart dialogue, nicely composed
characters and a view of life in the Pine Barrens that will appeal
to anyone who wants a romantic-yes, I said romantic-view of the
Garden State.
The story is about, and told by, Diana Moore, a thirty-something
marketing executive with an Internet company in New York who describes
herself as "brown of hair, nine of shoe, and wide of thigh."
When her parents and only brother are killed by a drunk driver
not far from the family home in Princeton, she goes on with her
life as best she can until impulsively quitting her job after
a dust-up with her boss. She spends the next month or so closeted
in her apartment, leaving only to go for long, solitary jogs through
Battery Park.
When
her closest friends confront her, showing up at her apartment
to clean it and insist she spend the next morning with a leading
psychiatric trauma specialist, Diana bluffs her way clear by promising
to get her act together. The next morning, instead of keeping
her appointment, she drives into New Jersey and wanders along
a back road into the Pine Barrens' farm country, where she is
so taken by the beauty of the landscape she smacks into an old
lady riding a motorcycle.
After that, things happen quickly. Diana's victim, Rosie, is unhurt,
although her accompanying granddaughter, Louisa, can barely contain
her fury. Still, in this small, unnamed New Jersey town, people
don't just let those who hit them with a car fend for themselves.
While Diana's Volvo is hauled off to the repair shop, Rosie and
Louisa take her home, going so far as to insist she stay for the
next night's cranberry festival. Even if their relationship didn't
get off on the right foot, Diana and Louisa are soon exchanging
secrets as they wait for a group of Louisa's long-time male friends
to arrive for their first peek at life in rural New Jersey. The
only secret not told is Diana's: she allows everyone to believe
her distance and sadness are the result of a love affair gone
bad.
It should all be pretty sappy, but DeMarco is a smart writer who
knows how to keep things light when she must. She's trying to
be uplifting here, and Cranberry Queen is at its very least the
kind of story that makes you feel good. I mean, it doesn't even
rain in this book. There's not a mean character in it, except
for Diana's unnamed former boyfriend, who we only hear about in
anecdotes and memories. Diana has a sense of self-deprecation
and with that keeps us from feeling sorry for her. On top of that,
she's a good observer of the things going on around her.
Ms. DeMarco is a good writer. She focuses her narrative on the
story at hand, weaving past events into present moments. She also
works in some lovely imagery. Describing the beauty of an early-morning
cranberry harvest, she writes, "All I can think is that I
wish my eyes were bigger, I wish my mind were bigger, I wish there
were a way to keep this in my memory-because as I watch, I already
know that there will be a moment, an hour, a day, when I will
be away from here, and this will be just one more memory, one
more sight, one more addition to the slush pile accumulating in
my brain next to People magazine covers and random quotes and
routine dinners…" She describes a "lonely night
where I ate a slice of vanilla cake with buttercream icing for
dinner." Such passages aren't deep, but they ring true, and
they typify Ms. DeMarco's approach.
With summer coming on and all of us who live and work in Central
New Jersey beginning to plan our escapes, Cranberry Queen is a
good book to bring along to the shore or the mountains, or through
the Pine Barrens, if for some reason you end up there. You won't
need your whole vacation to read it, but whatever you're doing,
it's a story that will make your days a little bit brighter.
###
Mark
Feffer is a founding editor of the Trenton Writes Project. He
is writing a novel.
