BUNCH OF GRAPES BOOKSTORE : « Vineyard Voices, Words, Faces and Voices
of Island People » is a book of some 70 selected
excerpts from interviews with Vineyard people conducted over
the last 20 years by Vineyard oral historian Linsey Lee. The book presents a unique window on Vineyard history, and the
black and white portraits by Ms. Lee and AP photographer Mark
Lennihan provide a moving and highly-polished accompanment.
Against a backdrop of a fast-changing Vineyard,
these stories bring the past alive and capture a way of life
unchanged for centuries. In vivid recollections reflecting the
character and cadence of the speaker, a picture is presented
of lives and traditions tied to the soil and the sea - farmers,
fishermen, whalers, boat builders. The quixotic and often divergent stories paint a real-life picture
of independent and caring people — some thriving, some
just surviving — in a self-reliant community frill
of hardship and joy. It is a vivid chronicle of what is special
about Martha's Vineyard, and what is in danger of being lost
forever.
These are stories of shipwrecks, cutting
ice from Island ponds, rum running, race relations, one-room
schoolhouses, Wampanoag herbal cures, the role of women, the
Gale of 1898, farming and fishing methods, whaling captains and
whaling wives, Portuguese traditions, the first black church,
summer visitors, and much more. The recollections are of Martha's
Vineyard, but the themes are universal — family joys,
struggle against adversity, courage, hard work, the predictible
and unpredictable forces of nature.
Vineyard Voices is an eye-catching treasure
trove of Vineyard memories, wisdom and humor and contains indispensible
information about the Vineyard of yesterday and today. Each story
is a unique thread in the rich tapestry of lives of the people
who define the Vineyard.
All proceeds from the sale of the book
will support the continued collecting of Vineyard oral histories,
the work of the Vineyard Oral History Center and the Martha's
Vineyard Historical Society.
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