A poignant memoir about the life of an African-American boy from the city summering on Marthas Vineyard during the rustic 1950s and turbulent 1960s. Its a coming of age story that is very personal, yet universal. It opens up to a reader a world that many will not know, but one they will still recognize. The Vineyard We Knew is almost elegiac in nature in that it creates a sense of nostalgia, even in a reader who had never been there.