Summers With Juliet

by Bill Roorbach

They met in a bar on Marthas Vineyard. Bill was instantly smittenher cool beauty, her insouciance, her sassy youthbut Juliet was unimpressed. Even so, a courtship began, and for the next eight summers, in sublime settings across North America, Bill Roorbach and Juliet Karelsen made circuitous progress toward a lasting love, and finally, marriage. In charming fashion, Summers with Juliet tells this tale, but it also chronicles a second awakening, as Juliet rekindles in Bill his childhood enchantment with nature. Now marvelous creatures giant ocean sunfish and wild turkeys, bellicose hummingbirds and canny trout, all of them images and explications of the many facets of Juliet. Landscapes hold new mysteries, too, and the author vividly describes his exuberant road trips with Juliet around the country, from the River of Promise in Montana, to the Gulf Coast of Florida. And at last, they come to a wooded lake in New Hampshire and the singular June day when! loves all there, sweeter than the cake.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Bill Roorbach's newest novel is The Remedy For Love, coming October 2014 from Algonquin Books. Life Among Giants, also from Algonquin, is in development for a multi-year series at HBO, and won the 2014 Maine Literary Award in Fiction. Big Bend: Stories has just be re-released by Georgia in its Flannery O'Connor Award series. Temple Stream is soon to be re-released by Down East Books. Bill is also the author of the romantic memoir SUMMERS WITH JULIET, the novel THE SMALLEST COLOR, the essay collection INTO WOODS. The tenth anniversary edition of his craft book, WRITING LIFE STORIES, is used in writing programs around the world. His short fiction has been published in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, and dozens of other magazines, journals, and websites, and has been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts, and won an O. Henry Prize. He lives in western Maine where he writes full time.

For more information about Bill Roorbach, see www.billroorbach.com, www.lifeamonggiantsthebook.com, and be sure to enjoy his blog and videos at www.billanddavescocktailhour.com. Follow him on Twitter: @​billroorbach.

Reviews

[Lani · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books and one of the few I’ve held onto because I enjoy rereading it so much. The author does an excellent job of painting a picture with his words and I always feel like I’m right there in the setting either floating down a river in a tube or fly fishing. It will make you long for summer adventures and remind you to appreciate the nature around you.

[Amy J · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun read.

[Alice Persons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been on a Bill Roorbach bender - read 5 of his books recently - maybe all of them? I don't know Bill but he lives in Maine and from his online presence appears to be a swell guy. I really enjoyed all his books. This memoir, mostly of his relationship with long-term girlfriend Juliet, is wonderful. It has humor, lyrical nature descriptions without going overboard, and a story line keeps the reader's interest. The trick to a good memoir is to know what to leave out, and to not indulge in self-pity, at least in my opinion. Roorbach manages it beautifully.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not usually a fan of autobiographies, but this is a fun read. I got to meet Bill Roorbach and have heard him tell stories about Juliet that didn't make it into the book. The book is a wonderful portrayal of how that one special person gets in your life and just toys with your emotions - that one person that you love despite yourself. I read this book in just a couple of days. It's quick and definitely worth the time.

[Rena Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Bill Roorbach's wonderful book on writing, I wanted to get to know him better and this book fully allowed that connection. It's an incredibly sweet book and lovingly written but also beautifully phrased and paced. He's a terrific nature writer and a true romantic. His descriptions of the people he met in Montana had me gasping in fear and yet, when I finished the book, all I wanted to do was go fishing.

[Alex Luhtjarv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite his best intentions to ruin this book with disconnected after disconnected stories about fishing, I ended up enjoying this book. We get it. You like to fish. But enough of the narrative and plot survived underneath his random "tales from THAT uncle" to make it worth reading. Their relationship was airy and fun and the reason this got 3 stars. Their time in Montana was the best in my opinion.

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great fun - what reviewers like to describe as "rollicking" - but much more than that. Roorbach writes of his eight summers of courting Juliet, the two camping throughout some of the wildest and most magnificent places in North America (and early on, Martha's Vineyard) before she finally agrees to marry him. Lots of great writing, lots on fishing, lots of laughs.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard Bill Roorbach speak at a writers' event at the University of Southern Maine. He is a funny guy, and you get that in "Summers with Juliet." I could have done with a little less fishing, but his descriptions of the natural environment are great. It's a good story about how he and Juliet grow together over the course of (mostly) summers.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill was the writer-in-residence at Haystack during the two week session I attended this summer. Juliet and their daughter sat in on the class I took. Bought the book to read when I got home and was very pleasantly surprised. His memoir of their (mis)spent youth and courtship was quite readable.

[Melissa Begin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. I read it every summer. It is a beautiful recount of time spent with Juliet. I enjoy his usage of words and his ability to bring up emotions that couple his experiences with Juliet. A must for everyone's library.

[Jessi Waugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just re-read this, remembering it was good but not why. It's good because it's funny and conveys, more than a love of Juliet, a love of nature, which I love to, and enjoyed sharing. The author is wonderfully self-deprecating, and that helps, too.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read and liked Bill Roorbach’s fiction, but discovered this very good memoir, mis-shelved in fiction, in my library. It was the perfect spring book with lots of travel and nature. A reminder to me to look for memoirs on purpose more often.

[Red · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful memoir that effortlessly blends the evolving romance of Bill and Juliet with wonderful travel and nature writing.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet. Beautiful writing.