DIANE MCCURDY

FILM AND BOOK REVIEWS

SONOMA COUNTY GAZETTE

May 8, 2025

Santa Rosa Realtor Robert Rebuschatis is very knowledgeable about viticulture. He also seems to be rather astute at what it takes to run a restaurant. He knows a thing or two about magic mushrooms as well. To some extent, he has probably dabbled in all of these things.

In his novel “Harvest and the Crush,” the story begins in Tucson. Kenny Lemonde-Savant learns how to cultivate grapes from his abusive father. He tenderly cares for and almost begs those vines to produce fruit in the unforgiving sand and heat of Arizona’s semi-desert climate.

After his mean father kills his sister’s dog for destroying one of his plants, she takes off for California. Eventually, Kenny follows, and the siblings settle somewhere in Wine Country, not too far from Healdsburg. Because Kenny honed his skills in such a harsh climate, he was highly attuned to what makes a vineyard profitable, so it was easy for him to land a job. He is employed at the Stork Winery, located near the path of the Russian River. The owner is Wally Stork.

If the author has one standout quality, it is his talent for characterization. Wally has only one eye and wears an eye patch, the other lost in a previous accident the reader is never fully told about. Wally is a fair guy, plagued by a shrew of a wife, Mari. Mari is somewhat of an enigma. Initially, we don’t know why she is so promiscuous and discontent, but her restlessness becomes a pivotal twist in the story.

Ziggy, Big Donny and Cool Guy are fellow workers. Wally ends up with incessant gum chewer Pink Rhonda. Casmir Strehlow is the most bizarre of them all. He stands out even among this group of weirdos and misfits. He is the president of a bird club that does not observe birds, drives around on a tractor and is semi-inebriated most of the time. Earlier, he was in a relationship with Hound’s Tongue, who runs a preschool, but now he seems to be sweet on Kenny’s sister.

Having created all these marginal characters, it is almost predictable that the author has a degree from Berkeley. At one time, he owned a restaurant in Railroad Square called Sourdough Rebo’s. He was involved in the wine business for 35 years and has even cultivated his own grapes on his family’s property. He knows Sonoma County intimately.

Just because the people who populate his pages are unconventional and dysfunctional does not mean his prose is jumbled or rambling. His style is clean and even lyrical at times. This is a rather long novel, but it flies by because the reader is dying to know what outrageous escapade this wild and crazy group will come up with next.