3 women get the chance for beautiful boldness
Three generations of women at a family vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island find their strength and determination put to the test in Jamie Brenner’s new novel, “Blush.” The locale is stunning and the appeal of Hollander Estates is seductive; beyond that is the inside scoop on the Hollander family itself.
From the start, Brenner’s novel invites readers of all ages into the drama. Vivian, the matriarch, has a secret now threatened to be exposed. Her daughter, Leah, is struggling with her marriage while her own daughter, Sadie, is dealing with the ups and downs of her love life and experiences as a young woman. Added to the mix are a few men, including Vivian’s husband, her son and Leah’s husband.
The entire family is tossed together at the lush vineyard on the eve of a pending and necessary sale. Readers are transported to a world where the women are worthy of acrobatic feats of heart and will, and they rise to the occasion.
After reading this ideal summer read, I had a few questions for the author.
Q: You are known for choosing enticing locations for your novels. What made you choose the North Fork and how did you go about researching it?
A: The idea for setting “Blush” on the North Fork started when I was in Sag Harbor researching my novel “Drawing Home.” I had dinner at a restaurant and the wine they served was the same name as the restaurant, Wolffer, and I discovered it was a family-owned winery on Long Island. Since I write about
families, this immediately sparked my curiosity and I began casually looking into the Wolffer vineyard. They have a rosé called “Summer in a Bottle” and I just loved that! Then, about a year later, I met the CEO of another North Fork winery called Bedell Cellars. I knew I wanted to write a book in this setting and began researching at Bedell in the winter of 2019.
Q: How did you create the characters for this novel, and did you have them in mind before you began to plot the story?
A: These characters came to me more quickly than in any other book I’ve written and I just love them. The first character I had in mind was Vivian, the matriarch. My older characters are my favorites to write, and I saw a photo of the actress Constance Towers and was like, OK, that’s the grandmother in “Blush.” At the same time, my teenage daughter Bronwen was talking a lot about the writers Julia Kristeva and Susan Sontag, and I thought that when I was her age, I was reading Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz. So I had the idea for the character Sadie, who is a bit of an intellectual snob who is having a creative and personal moment of crisis. Then the middle generation, Leah — Sadie’s mother — is the balance between Vivian and Sadie. They all bring different perspectives to the reading of the 1980s novels.
Q: The detail about wine and the wine industry is an added element. How did you learn about it in such detail?
A: I read a lot of books, the most helpful of which was the memoir “The Vineyard” by Louisa Thomas Hargrave. She and her husband were North Fork pioneers who started the first vineyard out there in 1971.
Q: You reference certain writers throughout the story and your dedication is to Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins. Tell us about what they mean to you and why.
A: I discovered these books at a young age: middle school. They scandalized me but also pulled back the curtain to aspects of life I’d just never considered before. The heroines whispered truths about life and love and womanhood that, as a whole, have influenced me more than any real person. Anne Tyler said, “I read because I want to live more than one life in more than one place.” For me, I’ve read because I wanted more than one mother, more than one best friend. Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz wrote daring stories about bold women who did naughty things, women who sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed but were all going for something. This was simply not messaging I was getting in my suburban upbringing circa 1985.