Summer

by Ali Smith Narrated by Juliette Burton

Overview

In the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother Robert just is trouble. Their mother and father
are having trouble. Meanwhile, the world's in meltdown-and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past,
a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they're living on borrowed time.
This is a story about people on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers. So: Where does
family begin? And what do people who think they've got nothing in common have in common?
Summer.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Ali Smith concludes her seasonal quartet with the triumphant Summer, the long-awaited final installment in a groundbreaking postmodern series . . . Smith reach[es] resonant conclusions on themes carried through . . . Now is the time to read straight through all four installments, which hang together in one grand, epic aria. Smith’s visionary series, ambitious in its scale and towering in its achievements, will be studied and imitated for decades to come.” 
—Esquire 

“A deeply resonant finale to a work that should come to be recognized as a classic. . . . A novel that is wonderfully entertaining—for its humor, allusions, deft use of time and memory, sharply realized characters, and delightfully relevant digressions—and a reminder, brought home by the pandemic, that everything and everyone truly is connected and the sufferance of suffering hurts us all.” 
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-07-01
The last volume of British writer Smith's elliptical, engrossing seasonal quartet revisits themes of activism and art and some familiar characters.

Smith weaves from seemingly disparate threads here. “Whether I shall turn out to be the heroine of my own life” is a quote a woman named Grace is trying to source. Her memory has regendered the original “hero,” from David Copperfield. Grace and her clever teenage kids join writers Art and Charlotte as they head to Suffolk in early 2020 to return a piece of art last seen in 1985 in Smith's second seasonal book, Winter (2018), when Art’s mother slept with a man named Daniel. Now 104, Daniel is helped by Elisabeth, who befriended him in her childhood in Autumn (2017). His memory drifts back to World War II, when he was held in U.K. detention centers with other men of German background. His sister, who helped people escape to Switzerland from Occupied France, has another crucial link to the small cast. Present-day political refugee Hero has been in a detention center for nearly three years; his passage to freedom involves a kind of coffee truck last seen in Spring (2019). “Nothing’s not connected,” says “a seasoned lefty activist.” This volume sounds the quartet’s recurrent klaxons about injustice, dereliction, and the perennial problem of how too few people step up. The main issues are immigration, refugees, Brexit, and COVID-19. Smith even briefly works in George Floyd. As always, the narrative zigs and zags, skimps on segues, demands attention and effort. The reward is a novel that is wonderfully entertaining—for its humor, allusions, deft use of time and memory, sharply realized characters, and delightfully relevant digressions—and a reminder, brought home by the pandemic, that everything and everyone truly is connected and the sufferance of suffering hurts us all.

A deeply resonant finale to a work that should come to be recognized as a classic.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173023124
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	08/25/2020
Series:	Seasonal Quartet Series , #4
Edition description:	Unabridged

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