Up Island (Abridged, Audio cassette, Abridged edition)

If there was ever one woman who knew what was important, that woman was Molly Bell Redwine. From childhood, Molly was taught by her difficult, charismatic mother that "The Family" was the world's most vital entity -- and its maintenance would be Molly's special talent. But, in a heartbeat, Molly is set adrift: her husband of more than twenty years leaves her for a younger woman, her domineering mother dies, and her Atlanta family scatters to the four winds.

Molly takes refuge by visiting friends on Martha's Vineyard. The very different world of the Vineyard hastens her changing identity, and Molly decides to stay on after the seasons, in a small cottage on a remote up-island pond. Her duties includes acting as caretaker to her bitter, aging landlady, as well as looking after the woman ill and estranged son, Dennis.

Keeping watch over Dennis, her landlady, and her newly-widowed father, Molly at last lets go of her outworn notions of family and begins to become a part of a strange -- and very real -- new one. As the long Vineyard winter closes in, Molly braces herself to search for renewal, identity, and strength until the healing spring finally comes. Up Island is Anne Rivers Siddons at her lyrical, storytelling best.