Skip to content
Scan a barcode
Scan
Hardcover Summer's House Book

ISBN: 0312241127

ISBN13: 9780312241124

Summer's House

Select Format

Select Condition ThriftBooks Help Icon

Recommended

Format: Hardcover

Condition: Good*

*Best Available: (ex-library)

$12.19
Save $12.76!
List Price $24.95
Almost Gone, Only 1 Left!

Book Overview

One hot New York City summer in the 1970s, the lives of three very different people - each uncomfortable with their surrounds and struggling to find a place where they can feel a sense of belonging - are forever changed.Raymond, an overly cerebral 17 year old, lives in the Bronx with his increasingly estranged parents. He's decided that the time has come for him to fall in love even if he is soure why or with which gender and grapples with the conflicting directions in which he is pulled by his desires and fears. As his parents become increasingly estranged, his mother leaves for a trip to Israel leaving Raymond and his father housemates in an apartment in which neither feels at home.Jerome, one of the legion of unrecognized poets marginally employed as a delivery man Seven Wonders Gourmet Foods, cannot rid himself of his obsession for the woman he loved and lived with - until she threw him out when he uncovered her secret past. His mentor - and sole friend - is the aging, erudite Maurice Rose, who - like Jerome - is about to thrown out of his home.Lester, Raymond's maternal uncle, is the middle aged owner of Seven Wonders Gourmet Foods and an unsuccessful suburbanite living on the edges of New York City. In a family and area were success and status are everything, he must confront the miseries of his failing business, a tense home life, and a persistent obscene caller who knows a bit too much about his wife.Drawn together by chance, circumstance, and mysterious woman with a secret in her past, their lives' intersect, collide, pull apart, and irreversibly change.

Customer Reviews

2 ratings

A rich, rewarding story

There are few novels that capture the breadth of New York City in the late 70s quite like this one - from the anarchic artists and squatters in Soho to the blue-collar neighborhoods of the Bronx. And I can think of few novels that are able to encompass and express the inner lives of such a diverse group of people. There's an exquisite ability at work here that manages to give voice to the unspoken dynamics of family life. As I read this book I felt like these were people I knew, people I grew up with. And for all the reality of the people, there's a poetry to the writing that managed to lift these daily, desperate lives to the heroic - and the tragicomic. Narrated by three different voices, three characters in the novel, (four if you count entries in a stolen journal that's essential to the plot) the reader has a fully three dimensional view of all the characters. But this view progresses in stages, so that it has all the mystery and beauty of a deepening relationship. Sometimes you learn things you don't like, but you're hooked. These people pull you into their story of love sought and confused sexuality, of social climbing and marital infidelity. This is a rich reading experience I would recommend to anyone who looks both depth of feeling and a good story.

Moving and rewarding

Summer's House is a wonderful novel that engages the reader from the first mysterious page. The three leading characters are all intriguing and complex people that you care about and understand. The language is poetic and evocative, with many monents that stop you in your tracks to let the richness and vividness sink in. There are several mysteries that unfold throughout the book and the clues are woven into a plot that pulls you along. The intensity of the character's plights at times becomes almost palpable through the writer's style and pacing. All through the novel there is a thread of sexuality which is tenderly and convincingly portrayed-whether it is a young man's stumbling forays into the world of adult sex or the sad attempt of an older man to find love and redemption in an affair. If you like multli-generational family stories (with a Jewish backdrop) movingly told, with beautiful prose, you'll love Summer's House.
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
GoDaddy Verified and Secured