I always look forward to summer, unfailingly optimistic at the prospect of long days full of light and warmth with perhaps a breeze to cool things down now and again. Living in my part of the world, I should know better. Climate change has also shortened the odds, delivering storms punctuated with brief 
heatwaves more often than not. Books are more reliable. Below are five that summon up the season even on gloomy grey days, several looking nostalgically back to summers past.
Taking its own sweet time, Niall Williams’ This is Happiness winds back and forth over a single memorable summer which sees the electrification of a small town on the west coast of Ireland. Seventy-five-year-old Noe remembers those long, bright days in 1958 when he was seventeen and Faha stood on the cusp of change, telling a poignant story of love, redemption and the secret of happiness. Williams knows how to spin a yarn, expertly weaving a glorious sunlit tapestry of a community about to plant its feet in the twentieth-century fifty years into it. His novel is choc-full of stories and peopled with engaging characters, not least Noe and Christy, the man who becomes his friend. Given my liking for spare, crisp writing, Williams’ lyrical, flowery style took some getting used to, but I loved this novel which evoked the season beautifully.
Benjamin Myers’ The Offing sees another old man remembering a formative summer, this one just after the Second World War when he tramped out of the pit village where his family lived for generations, eager for adventure. Along the way he meets Dulcie Price, a woman quite unlike anyone he’s met before. Robert camps in her overgrown field exchanging manual work for conversation until a friendship grows which will change both their lives irrevocably. Myers’ novel is filled with vivid descriptions of the natural world, redolent of a seemingly endless summer, while the forthright, eccentric Dulcie is a delight.
Gerbrand Bakker’s June is set largely on a Saturday in a small Dutch village but at its centre is Queen Julianna’s visit on June 
17th 1969 nearly forty years before, a day of celebration which turned into tragedy shortly after a young woman dashes over to the departing monarch, clutching her two-year-old daughter. The Queen greets her, lightly touching the child’s cheek. Later that day an accident will leave the little girl’s family bereft. The rest of Bakker’s novel follows another sweltering June day largely through the Kaan family, beginning with the two-year-old’s mother – now a grandmother – who has regularly taken herself off to the straw loft on the rundown family farm since 1969, ignoring all attempts to talk her down. The latest trigger is her golden wedding anniversary celebration, a family trip to the zoo which proved to be far from an unalloyed joy. Beautifully translated by David Colmer, Bakker’s writing is clean and plain but richly evocative with a quiet humour running through the heartache.
Swiss writer Roland Buti’s novella, Year of the Drought, is set in the long hot summer of 1976, a year which proves momentous for the Sutters who have farmed the same patch of land for many years. Thirteen-year-old Gus’s father is wedded to a way of life that’s fast passing, his plans for a future farming chickens blown apart by the cataclysmic weather. He’s left bereft, puzzled and angry by the behaviour of his wife who’s captivated by the young woman who turns up, clad in a long patchwork dress and spouting hippie ideas, throwing the household into a state of disarray. Meanwhile, the ancient dog faints from the heat, the new chickens roast in their henhouse and the sun beats relentlessly down. The inevitable storm brings disaster with it. An enjoyable thread of humour lightens the tone of Buti’s novel which summons up the deadening heat of a summer that feels endless.
Tensions run high in Miranda Cowley Heller’s The Paper Palace which sees Elle in the midst of the messy aftermath of the previous night’s drunken dinner party, not least her infidelity with her childhood best friend, telling her story over the course of twenty-four hours in a series of flashbacks. Happily married, with three children, she’s faced with the lies on which so much of her life has been built and finds her own way out. I’d expected a light but absorbing read with this one which I’d picked out as my annual Cape Cod summer setting fix – parties on the beach, gossipy and entertaining – but Heller’s story is very much darker than that, and all the better for it. A gripping, thoroughly engrossing novel with a disconcerting ending. Don’t be put off by that rather lurid cover.
Any summery novels you’d particularly recommend?
If you’d like to explore more posts like this, I’ve listed them here.
What a great theme. I too love summer for the long days of daylight and warmth. Reading while outside can be a delight, although I often get distracted my nature when I do so!
Reading outside is such a treat, isn’t it. I’m daring to hope this summer might have finally started.
I’m astonished to find I have read a book ahead of your doing so! I loved The Offing and it began my fan-dom for Myers’ writing. I’m interested to read your positive review of The Paper Palace, because the cover had indeed put me off. But all these books look as if they deserve a read. Summer though? I’m interested in the longer term forecast as my Spanish family arrives this weekend. Next week … summer’s over.
Maybe they’ll bring a top-up with them. I’ll be posting a review of Myers’ new one next week which couldn’t be more different from The Offing. That cover is atrocious!
Yes, I thought so too. Guess I’ll still read it though. I’m just going to catch up with him on yesterday’s BBC R4 Open Book. Did you hear it?
I didn’t. Was it good? Might catch it on Sounds.
I’d never heard him speak before, so yes, though short it’s worth listening to.
Thanks – I’ll gvie it a try.
I love reading outdoors in summer but Irish weather this year is not particularly conducive to it. Maybe I need to live vicariously and read some of these books instead. Williams is a well loved writer here, although I have not read his work yet. Still reeling over news of Edna O’Brien’s death this weekend. An authentic and courageous woman and writer.
I was so sad to hear that news. She published her last novel five years ago, I think, which would have made her around 88 at the time. Amazing achievement!
Summer seems to have just started here although who know how long it will last. I hope you’ll have some sun to sit out in soon.
I remember thinking at the time that the cover of The Paper Palace was somewhat incongruent with the actual content!
Absolutely! The UK hardback version was much better.
I, too, have read This Is Hapiness. I liked it even though like you I prefer spare, crisp writing. Also, perhaps the story spent a little too much time meandering.
Having recently read the sequel (due out in October) which I didn’t enjoy so much I think that’s very much his style.
I probably won’t read the sequel. I remember feeling impatient with his meandering ways.
Probably best not, then. I don’t think I’ll be going back to Faha again!
I have a copy of This is Happiness which I really must read. The Paper Palace is a fabulous read. Great selection Susan
Thanks, Mairéad. This Is Happiness is a treat although you’ll need a bit of uninterrrupted time to get into it.
I much prefer reading about hot climes to being in them; where I’m from in the States is only bearable in the summer with air conditioning. I loved The Offing and have also read the Bakker. I’m thinking of rereading a different novel set in the summer of 1976, Maggie O’Farrell’s Instructions for a Heatwave, next month. I can think of a couple of other books I haven’t read that have the same setting. Year of the Drought sounds like a good one.
I’m not keen on extreme heat either but it’s humidity that really gets to me. The O’Farrell would be a good read for the next few days although I don’t think we’ll be mirroring 1976 this year!
I’m not a summer fan but this doesn’t stop me enjoying a summer novel! I’m afraid the only one of these I’ve read is The Paper Palace, which I didn’t like. Year of the Drought sounds good, though. As a kid, my quintessential dry/droughty summer book was Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.
I’ll look that up! I live in a wet part of the UK which is partly why I love the idea of summer.
Sadly, summer here has become a season to dread and much of those in-between seasons, spring and autumn have more or less disappeared leaving us to go between extremes. I do still enjoy the change from winter to warmer weather though, the new leaves appearing and such!
A great theme for picking reads though of which June and This is Happiness appeal most.
Thank you! Climate change is very much in evidence everywhere, isn’t it, although some places much more so than others.
I recently read a different Niall Williams (The Fall of Light) though in style it does seem similar to This is Happiness. He seems to like to take his time to get the plot going.
He does seem to favour a meandering style. After reading the forthcoming sequel, I don’t think I’ll read another.
Interesting to hear that – I’m not sure he’s for me either having read two of his books now
I’ve not read any of these although I’ve enjoyed Bakker and Williams in the past. I’m very tempted by The Offing, it sounds wonderful.
I’d say The Offing was right up your alley!
I’ve been meaning to read The Paper Palace since I read your initial review!
It’s so much better than that awful cover suggests! I hope you enjoy it if you get to it, Cathy.
Such a good post for mid-summer. I’ve not heard of any of these so it was extra nice.
So glad you liked it. We’ve had a dire start to our summer which is what made me write it but now we’re in the midst of a mini heatwave!
I’m most intrigued by your review of The Paper Palace, which I had been initially interested in and then discounted, assuming it was a bit of a Fifty Shades sexfest but with good prose. If you liked it, then it goes back on the list! I must also read Niall Williams one of these fine days. I’ve been meaning to…. you know how it goes. I don’t think I’ve read a really summery summer book this year. I’ll have to do something about that!
The Paper Palace was my most visited review for some time. It has an ending that clearly perplexed some who were looking for an explanation. Frustrating for them, given I would never give anything like that away!
The Secret of Happiness is wonderfully evocative of summer which, oddly enough, seemed finally to arrive the day I posted this.
Year of the Drought appeals to my current reading mood, but they all sound like great reads really. I enjoy summer themes. Julia Ferraro’s The Gypsy Moth Summer is a good one. Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor. And certain authors I always associate with summer, mainly because I remember reading them on school vacations (like Stephen King).
I’ve not come across the Ferraro. I’ll look it up. There’s definitely a nostalgia value to books read lazily in the sun!