The Winemaker's Daughter

By Timothy Egan

Book Overview

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times national correspondent Timothy Egan turns to fiction with The Winemaker's Daughter , a lyrical and gripping novel about the harsh realities and ecological challenges of turning water into wine. When Brunella Cartolano visits her father on the family vineyard in the basin of the Cascade Mountains, she's shocked by the devastation caused by a four-year drought. Passionate about the Pacific Northwest ecology, Brunella, a cultural impact analyst, is embroiled in a battle to save the Seattle waterfront from redevelopment and to preserve a fisherman's livelihood. But when a tragedy among fire-jumpers results from a failure of the water supply-her brother Niccolo is among those lost--Brunella finds herself with another mission: to find out who is sabotaging the area's water supply. Joining forces with a Native American Forest Ranger, she discovers deep rifts rooted in the region's complicated history, and tries to save her father's vineyard from drying up for good . . . even as violence and corruption erupt around her.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400034108
• ISBN13: 9781400034109
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant

Hey, lighten up, everybody. This guy is a brilliant writer. His details about water, wine, and women (or at least his one great woman, Brunella, who may have an unfortunate name--and I'm not sure it's better than Barola, which would have been more fitting--but who is effervescently both sensual and sexual) are deep and true and give the novel a nice backbone. True, the story doesn't quite hold together. But it's better for Egan to have bitten off too much than to have tried to spit out the puny efforts that pass for most fiction today (and back in the earlier part of this decade, when he wrote this). This novel has a great sense of place--a fictional terroir that's deeply satisfying. And Brunella is no mere clone either but the real thing, the equivalent of a wine of contemplation.