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All the Way to Summer: Stories of Love and Longing
A powerful collection of stories exploring love and longing from the award-winning author of This Mortal Boy .
Two mothers fight over who will wear a hat on their children's wedding day. A needle is lost somewhere in a woman’s body. A writer waits with a suitcase for a man who never comes. This collection brings together Fiona Kidman’s finest and most scandalous stories, vividly depicting the joys of female desire and the pain of heartbreak, the thrill of illicit liaisons and the twists and turns of unconventional love. Sometimes joyful, often devastating and always beautiful, All the Way to Summer is a searing account of love and loss from a pioneering feminist icon.
Two mothers fight over who will wear a hat on their children's wedding day. A needle is lost somewhere in a woman’s body. A writer waits with a suitcase for a man who never comes. This collection brings together Fiona Kidman’s finest and most scandalous stories, vividly depicting the joys of female desire and the pain of heartbreak, the thrill of illicit liaisons and the twists and turns of unconventional love. Sometimes joyful, often devastating and always beautiful, All the Way to Summer is a searing account of love and loss from a pioneering feminist icon.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
368 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2020
8 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Fiona Kidman
54 books64 followersFiona Kidman is a leading contemporary novelist, short story writer and poet. Much of her fiction is focused on how outsiders navigate their way in narrowly conformist society. She has published a large and exciting range of fiction and poetry, and has worked as a librarian, producer and critic. Kidman has won numerous awards, and she has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and other significant honours, as well as being a consistent advocate for New Zealand writers and literature. She is the President of Honour for the New Zealand Book Council, and has been awarded an OBE and a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 1, 2025
4.5⭐️
March 28, 2020
** FULL REVIEW TO FOLLOW IN OTAGO DAILY TIMES**
All the Way to Summer is a thing of exquisite beauty—both the physical book (that Gretchen Albrecht image! That paper stock! That stitched case binding!) and of course the stories inside. To celebrate Dame Fiona Kidman’s 80th birthday, this collection of thirteen stories brings together the best of her short works, as well as several that are new, and all of them around the theme of love. It would make a wonderful gift, and a thing of great comfort at this uncertain time.
In four sections, Circling, Longing, Awry and As it Was, Kidman wields her trademark piercing observation of domesticity, feminism, illicit liaisons, loneliness, and of course love. ‘Does it ache like a tooth?’ she asks in the preface. ‘Do hearts really break?’ It turns out they do. It also turns out that the ordinary people of her stories aren’t so ordinary—they’re intense and deep thinking, and often unrequited in some aspect of their lives, be it love, work, or domestic situation. They’re also having a lot of exquisite sexually charged moments. Kidman is a master of the domestic erotic!
Favourite quotes:
On going to war: ‘Douglas didn’t fall in battle, and besides, his war was a jungle skirmish, his going a young man’s response to the unanswerable in his life, not to a call to arms sweeping the nation.
– Page 19, ‘Circling to Your Left’
But the sense that things are so easily displaced, that people land in random situations without exactly knowing how or what will happen next, hadn’t before occurred to me with such force. I should have been more alert.
– Page 53, ‘Red Bell’
That is how it is, I thought to myself. We trace our way through our shifting precarious existence, questioning it over and again, watching out for landmines, sudden explosions, seeking the truth of every moment. There are losses and separations and red beating hearts and flare-ups wherever our gaze rests. Sorrows become wounds, and we each carry the burden of one another.
But there is also love and the fine tomorrow.
– Page 58, ‘Red Bell’
Some nights, under the tin roof of the cottage, she ached, wanting things she couldn’t have.
– Page 95, ‘A Needle in the Heart’
What she wanted was to sit and work out what was happening; something was going on that she couldn’t figure out.
– Page 104, ‘A Needle in the Heart’
Somewhere, drifting among her blood, the thick red soup of herself, the needle had moved, perhaps entered her heart.
– Page 111, ‘A Needle in the Heart’
Something had started a long way back, before she could in any way decide for herself how things should have been. Back when she was young. Somewhere in the deep sloop of her early life, in a place she didn’t recognise.
– Page 125 ‘A Needle in the Heart’
Long ago, she had recognised and been grateful for the way that day had ended, how she had been saved from herself. She can see now that there is always an extra factor, the unknown, the wild card. A letter, an accident, a meeting with a stranger, some quirk of fate that will change the symmetry, deliver people from their expectations.
– Page 253, ‘Marvellous Eight’
‘There were some things missing,’ she sayd
‘You mean he stole things?’
‘Something like that.’ They didn’t go into details either in that family. A trinket, a farm, a heart—my mother could have meant any of those things. A sense of honour, perhaps, we might think it misplaced nowadays.
– Page 324, Silver-Tongued
The young many had quickened my senses, but I was old enough to know that what seems romantic on the outside can be a substitute for grief, and I was grateful to have gone on in the world long enough to understand that.
– Page 324, Silver-Tongued.
All the Way to Summer is a thing of exquisite beauty—both the physical book (that Gretchen Albrecht image! That paper stock! That stitched case binding!) and of course the stories inside. To celebrate Dame Fiona Kidman’s 80th birthday, this collection of thirteen stories brings together the best of her short works, as well as several that are new, and all of them around the theme of love. It would make a wonderful gift, and a thing of great comfort at this uncertain time.
In four sections, Circling, Longing, Awry and As it Was, Kidman wields her trademark piercing observation of domesticity, feminism, illicit liaisons, loneliness, and of course love. ‘Does it ache like a tooth?’ she asks in the preface. ‘Do hearts really break?’ It turns out they do. It also turns out that the ordinary people of her stories aren’t so ordinary—they’re intense and deep thinking, and often unrequited in some aspect of their lives, be it love, work, or domestic situation. They’re also having a lot of exquisite sexually charged moments. Kidman is a master of the domestic erotic!
Favourite quotes:
On going to war: ‘Douglas didn’t fall in battle, and besides, his war was a jungle skirmish, his going a young man’s response to the unanswerable in his life, not to a call to arms sweeping the nation.
– Page 19, ‘Circling to Your Left’
But the sense that things are so easily displaced, that people land in random situations without exactly knowing how or what will happen next, hadn’t before occurred to me with such force. I should have been more alert.
– Page 53, ‘Red Bell’
That is how it is, I thought to myself. We trace our way through our shifting precarious existence, questioning it over and again, watching out for landmines, sudden explosions, seeking the truth of every moment. There are losses and separations and red beating hearts and flare-ups wherever our gaze rests. Sorrows become wounds, and we each carry the burden of one another.
But there is also love and the fine tomorrow.
– Page 58, ‘Red Bell’
Some nights, under the tin roof of the cottage, she ached, wanting things she couldn’t have.
– Page 95, ‘A Needle in the Heart’
What she wanted was to sit and work out what was happening; something was going on that she couldn’t figure out.
– Page 104, ‘A Needle in the Heart’
Somewhere, drifting among her blood, the thick red soup of herself, the needle had moved, perhaps entered her heart.
– Page 111, ‘A Needle in the Heart’
Something had started a long way back, before she could in any way decide for herself how things should have been. Back when she was young. Somewhere in the deep sloop of her early life, in a place she didn’t recognise.
– Page 125 ‘A Needle in the Heart’
Long ago, she had recognised and been grateful for the way that day had ended, how she had been saved from herself. She can see now that there is always an extra factor, the unknown, the wild card. A letter, an accident, a meeting with a stranger, some quirk of fate that will change the symmetry, deliver people from their expectations.
– Page 253, ‘Marvellous Eight’
‘There were some things missing,’ she sayd
‘You mean he stole things?’
‘Something like that.’ They didn’t go into details either in that family. A trinket, a farm, a heart—my mother could have meant any of those things. A sense of honour, perhaps, we might think it misplaced nowadays.
– Page 324, Silver-Tongued
The young many had quickened my senses, but I was old enough to know that what seems romantic on the outside can be a substitute for grief, and I was grateful to have gone on in the world long enough to understand that.
– Page 324, Silver-Tongued.
April 4, 2022
All The Way To Summer - Hats - Written by Fiona Kidman
Fiction/New Zealand short story collection
29/03/22
This story is in the groom’s mother’s point of view. The problem with the main character of this story, the groom’s mother, was that she had really sensitive and hard-to-keep-in feelings. When the bride’s family comes to the groom’s mother’s house with the food for the wedding, the groom’s mother hears that the bride’s mother is going to wear a hat to finish off her outfit, after she said she wasn’t going to wear a hat, which really shakes the groom’s mother and leaves her in tears. She described the moment, “My face is covered with tears. I walk out, leaving them (the rest of the family) to finish whipping the cream”. She felt like she absolutely needed a hat for the wedding, so she sent her husband to their daughter’s house for a hat to wear to the wedding, because she didn’t have one for her costume.
After she gets her hat, both families go to the church together for the wedding. However, since she was so upset earlier in front of the whole family about the bride’s mother wearing a hat for the wedding, the bride’s mother had been shamed into ending up not bringing a hat with her, which puts the groom’s mother into embarrassment for wearing her hat.
This story shows us that sometimes we have to hide our feelings, especially jealousy, at a time everyone is enjoying.
The story also shows us how people can get embarrassed after getting pointed out about something they have that other people don’t have, like it showed in this story when the bride’s mother ended up not wearing a hat to the wedding after getting shamed because of wearing a hat after saying that she wasn’t going to.
However, at the end of the day, we may be with our friends or family, and if we have a small argument,andwe can’t be angry at each other for the rest of the day.
Fiction/New Zealand short story collection
29/03/22
This story is in the groom’s mother’s point of view. The problem with the main character of this story, the groom’s mother, was that she had really sensitive and hard-to-keep-in feelings. When the bride’s family comes to the groom’s mother’s house with the food for the wedding, the groom’s mother hears that the bride’s mother is going to wear a hat to finish off her outfit, after she said she wasn’t going to wear a hat, which really shakes the groom’s mother and leaves her in tears. She described the moment, “My face is covered with tears. I walk out, leaving them (the rest of the family) to finish whipping the cream”. She felt like she absolutely needed a hat for the wedding, so she sent her husband to their daughter’s house for a hat to wear to the wedding, because she didn’t have one for her costume.
After she gets her hat, both families go to the church together for the wedding. However, since she was so upset earlier in front of the whole family about the bride’s mother wearing a hat for the wedding, the bride’s mother had been shamed into ending up not bringing a hat with her, which puts the groom’s mother into embarrassment for wearing her hat.
This story shows us that sometimes we have to hide our feelings, especially jealousy, at a time everyone is enjoying.
The story also shows us how people can get embarrassed after getting pointed out about something they have that other people don’t have, like it showed in this story when the bride’s mother ended up not wearing a hat to the wedding after getting shamed because of wearing a hat after saying that she wasn’t going to.
However, at the end of the day, we may be with our friends or family, and if we have a small argument,andwe can’t be angry at each other for the rest of the day.
September 8, 2025
Fiona Kidmans writing is so beautiful. She makes such simple stories carry so much depth. Im so happy I picked this book up after a good three years on my tbr list - I think I found a new favorite
March 11, 2021
Dame Fiona Kidman is an exquisite writer. She absolutely captures the essence of her characters.
November 29, 2022
High 3+ overall - really enjoyed the writing style but liked some stories more than others. However, I think this is one of those books to sit with afterwards, and if you ask me to rate it later on, I’ll probably give it a higher rating.
Faves were: Circling to Your Left; Hats; The Honey Frame; Mrs Dixon & Friend; Silver-tongued;All the Way to Summer; Silks; and Stippled.
I’d like to make some analysis about what that indicates about me as a reader or a person, but I picked them because I liked them and that’s all that matters really. They were good stories about living, and loving, with characters that I could see and hear and remember. Beautiful observations and language.
Faves were: Circling to Your Left; Hats; The Honey Frame; Mrs Dixon & Friend; Silver-tongued;All the Way to Summer; Silks; and Stippled.
I’d like to make some analysis about what that indicates about me as a reader or a person, but I picked them because I liked them and that’s all that matters really. They were good stories about living, and loving, with characters that I could see and hear and remember. Beautiful observations and language.
July 4, 2020
I love Fiona Kidman’s writing. This book which is comprised of a series of short stories advocates for me the essence of New Zealand and the Kiwi way of life. A lovely book to read and treasure. Highly recommended!
October 12, 2021
I first came across Fiona Kidman in the 1980s when I read A Breed of Women, a bestselling and influential novel in feminist literature. This collection of short stories was published to mark the author’s 80th birthday. Her early stories about New Zealand women’s experiences scandalized readers at the time they were written with their depictions of the heartbreaks and joys of desire, illicit liaisons and unconventional love. She tells the realities of women’s lives. The story I liked best from the collection was Circling to Your Left. It tells of life in rural communities, the challenges faced by women and how secrets are kept or not kept in small towns.
January 7, 2023
Great collection of short stories all centred around themes of love and relationships.
March 29, 2023
Well-written short stories. The writing reminded me slightly of Katherine Mansfield.
July 5, 2024
"Once you have been away and seen a bit of the world, you can't accept everything the way it was before."
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews