A Shower of Summer Daysby May Sarton
Published by W. W. Norton & Co., February 17, 1995 (1952)
244 Pages • ISBN 978-0393009255 • Paperback
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Book description:
"At long last in early June the Gordons were expected home at Dene's Court, the house in Ireland which Violet Dene Gordon had inherited."
So begins May Sarton's evocative early novel about Violet Gordon's return, after thirty years, to her childhood home, where much had to be settled in one brief summer—fateful decisions about a marriage, a love affair, and a career. No influence was more important than the splendid old Dene's Court itself, and the memories it held.
A quiet novel, that at first seems to be about the relationships between the protagonists: Violet Dene Gordon and her husband, Charles, who have recently returned to Violet's family home of Dene's Court in Ireland, and Violet's American niece, Sally, who has made a poor attachment to an actor in the States, when in fact the entire novel is truly about emotion, and what happens when emotions become too volatile within a small group of people in an enclosed space. The enclosed space, in this case, is Dene's Court itself, which could almost be considered a character on its own, as its presence in the novel is just as important as the main characters are. There is no plot, per se,as we seem to be just dropped into these people's lives for one summer, but Sarton handles this smoothly and poetically, not needing a lot of back story, just telling the story in its own present. This could be one of my favorites.
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