- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Canada (July 25 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0676972802
- ISBN-13: 978-0676972801
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 322 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #503,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
David Macfarlane's Summer Gone is the story of Bay Newling, overweight and divorced, and his almost-teenaged son, Caz, and the memories that persist through the generations. It is also the story of those incredibly ephemeral summers in Canadian cottage country, which arrive and disappear with the brilliance of a struck wooden match. Ontario is speckled with 250,000 lakes, and summer at the lakeside cottage or camp is as Canadian as mournful-sounding loons or maple syrup. But summers are not all canoes and clear waters--they are also a time of healthy bodies panting amid mirages of heat and light. With evocative language and elaborate time-play, Macfarlane draws out the passions hidden in this landscape and in Bay's heart: "through the blue heat, the slip of bangles, the open folds and the shadows of creased white cotton, his time was slipping out of him and into the unordered cold."
Bay Newling, an urban man of strong habits and emotions, is blinded by his own desire one brilliant summer day, and he and his son both pay the price of temptation and its aftermath. In the end, Summer Gone, which won the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a tragedy but one so exquisitely rendered, with an ending so startling, that, like a dive into icy water, it leaves the reader breathless. --Mark Frutkin --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Macfarlane, a columnist for the Toronto Globe & Mail, earned a measure of admiration for Come from Away, which won the Canadian Authors' Association Award for nonfiction in 1992. This is his first venture into fiction. The gist of the tale is a bit hard to summarize, but it has to do with the editor of a Canadian monthly magazine recalling past summers and winters as he and his young son canoe through Ontario's northern lakes. Macfarlane skillfully evokes an atmosphere at once somber and slightly ominous, but the drama, instead of flowing smoothly, jerks and snaps from past to present, scene to scene, and person to person so that even an earnest attendant finds it difficult at times to follow. Setting and mores are described with an expert hand, but many readers are likely to be puzzled by the often irritatingly abrupt transitions, the curious mixture of present and past, and the intertwining of reality, dreaming, and the twilight in between. Of limited appeal; for collections of Canadian fiction.
-A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
-A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
great novel,
By renee (Ohio) - See all my reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed feelings,
By
This review is from: Summer Gone (Paperback)
This story truly did capture Ontario's cottage country and the emotions that surround summer.However, it was a bit of a tough read - lots of thoughts within thoughts, and run-on sentences. Add to that a lot of jumping around between different time periods, and varioud narrators, and it made it a slow, challenging read. But yet, I was still enthralled by the story and the details...
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horrible,
By A Customer
This review is from: Summer Gone (Paperback)
I am a very avid reader and I usually love most books I read, this one was in my opinion, just plain horrible.The main character of this story, Bay is sort of the narrator. I thought the writer would sometimes switch between Bay being the narrator and himself because it would get extremely confusing at points. There was nothing beautiful in this novel in my opinin as many comments here say. The characters are very dull and I never felt any sympathy for them because I did not feel that I knew much about any of the characters. The story also switches from one character to the other and from the past to the present very abruptly so many times I was left wondering if it was still talking about the same character. This book created massive confusion and anger within me. Many times I got so frustrated with the stupid little details that rambled on for 5 pages sometimes that I got frustrated and threw the book down. But what really infuriated me was the end, it seems as if David Macfarlane realized how much he had been rambling and could ramble no more so he ended the book ever so abrutly in like one chapter. I had to read this chapter several times to actually understand what he was talking about. This book turned me off reading for a month...it was just horrible. Sorry if I offended anyone.
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