Strawberry Sunday
From AwardAnnals
| Book: | Strawberry Sunday |
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| Author: | Stephen Greenleaf |
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| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
One of the few people who can bring him out of his depression is young Rita Lombardi, in the hospital for surgery on a disfiguring birthmark and clubfeet. Rita and Tanner walk the halls together, pulling their IVs behind them, discussing the big and small issues of life: Rita’s love for her friend Carlos and her passion for her special corner of the world—the strawberry fields of California’s Salinas Valley.
Rita has been around the strawberry industry since childhood, and she knows that strawberry picking is brutally hard work, and that only the landowners make money from it. In Mexico the fruit is called The Fruit of the Devil, perhaps not an inappropriate designation.
As Rita leaves the hospital for home, walking tall and straight for the first time in her life, she and Tanner pledge to stay in touch. She wants to show him her valley and the plight of the migrant workers, many of them illegals, who work so hard for so little.
But Rita never gets to welcome Tanner to her town of Haciendas. When Tanner recovers enough to call Rita, he receives some devastating news.
Rita is dead, murdered by an unknown assailant.
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