Death in Summer
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4.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book
From the winner of the 1999 David Cohen British Literature Prize comes an unforgettably chilling novel, written with the compassion and artistry that define Trevor's fiction.
There were three deaths that summer. The first was Letitia’s, sudden and quite unexpected, leaving her husband, Thaddeus, haunted by the details of her last afternoon.
The next death came some weeks later, after Thaddeus’s mother-in-law helped him to interview for a nanny to bring up their baby. None of the applicants were suitable—least of all the last one, with her sharp features, her shabby clothes that reeked of cigarettes, her badly typed references—so Letitia’s mother moved herself in. But then, just as the household was beginning to settle down, the last of the nannies surprisingly returned, her unwelcome arrival heralding the third of the summer tragedies.
“William Trevor is an extraordinarily mellifluous writer, seemingly incapable of composing an ungraceful sentence. . . . His skill is very real, and equals his great compassion. With Death in Summer, these two qualities combine in a beautiful and resonant way.”—The New York Time Book Review
“Possibly the most perfect of Trevor’s novels . . . Astonishing.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Beautifully paced and mesmerizing . . . Offering us a compelling mystery on many levels through . . . finely drawn, perfect glimpses of touchingly imperfect lives.”—The Washington Post Book World
Nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A hot, beautiful summer in Essex provides the background for Trevor's latest novel, in which three deaths occur and people from all of England's social classes interact in unexpected ways. Thaddeus Davenant, the penurious descendant of an illustrious family, marries Letitia Iveson for her money but learns to appreciate her gentle goodness. When she dies in a freak accident, he's left with their infant daughter. After his interviews with nanny applicants fail to produce a candidate, his mother-in-law volunteers to move into Quincunx House to care for Georgina. But Thaddeus has unwittingly introduced evil into his household. Devastated when she is not hired as Georgina's nanny, desperate, love-starved Pettie, brought up in a foster home where she was sexually abused, becomes obsessed with the life she imagines she would live with Thaddeus and concocts a plan to remove Mrs. Iveson from the scene. Meanwhile, Thaddeus is forced to come to the aid of his former mistress, a lower-class woman whose illness and death coincide with his other crises. Trevor's insight into human nature and his dexterity in depicting characters from the lower strata of society are again displayed in this mesmerizing story. Pettie, like the heroine of Felicia's Journey (1995), has neither a consoling family nor inner resources to sustain her. The contrasts between Quincunx House and the Morning Star youth home, and between the genteel stoicism of the upper classes and the desperation of those with nothing to lose, are stunningly clear. As usual, Trevor's prose is meticulous and restrained, and surprises resonate after their quiet disclosure. His message--that life is cruel because death is random, but for some, life's cruelty is such that death is a balm--is conveyed with the ease of a master storyteller and humane observer. FYI: Trevor's Selected Stories will be published simultaneously by Penguin.
Customer Reviews
Death in Summer
Death in Summer has a haunting lyrical quality. Trevor has the ability with simple short sentences to place reader in cafes, homes, gardens, on pathways and roads eavesdropping on his characters conversations with one another. He also puts the reader inside these individuals heads, looking through their eyes, thinking their thoughts. His transitions from present to past are amazingly fluid, revealing their histories in fine, seamless weaves. Though a reader may feel deprived at lack of specifics in how final outcomes occur, that may be a part of Trevor's storytelling art - leaving a reader's imagination to interact with the story.