A Summons to New Orleans

by Barbara Hall

Nora Braxton's life is falling apart. Her husband has run off with a waitress almost young enough to be his daughter, leaving behind unpaid taxes amounting to thousands of dollars. In addition, her vindictive mother continues to criticize, telling her how to run her life, constantly berating her with shrill choruses of "I-told-you-so's." To make matters worse, Nora's thirteen-year-old son wants to run off to Miami to live with his freethinking, free-spending dad.

So when Simone Gray, Nora's old college friend from the University of Virginia, invites her to New Orleans for a week's vacation, Nora jumps at the chance to get away from it all and get a fresh perspective.

Once in this exotic, almost foreign city, Nora finds that she is not the only friend to be summoned by Simone. Poppy Marchand, another former schoolmate, is there as well. Almost immediately after the initial reunion, Nora and Poppy learn that Simone's invitation is not a purely social visit and that she has much more in mind than a week of fun and relaxation.

Simone, a prominent Los Angeles-based food critic, is a rape victim, and she has asked these old friends to be with her for moral support during the trial of the man she has charged with raping her. A year earlier, while on assignment in New Orleans, Simon was raped after leaving a nightclub. Once model beautiful, she's now shockingly thin, and is, in fact anorexic. Nora, already emotionally at sea and diminished by heartaches, resolves nonetheless to stand by her friend. And Poppy Marchand, a blisteringly plainspoken woman who has recently found religion and left her husband, also vows to be there for Simone, but not without her own bitter reservations.

What follows - before, during and after the trial - is an unraveling of the precepts upon which these three women have built their relationship, each struggling to come to terms with lives that haven't worked out the way any of them planned. Pasts are explored, secrets are shared, and the truth of what really happened to Simone is put into question.

Drawn from the author's own experience, A Summons to New Orleans is a wonderfully written and beautifully crafted novel of three women and their fateful reunion that propels each one to search her past - together their shocking revelations test the true limits of loyalty, friendship, and trust.

207 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

To TV audiences she may be better known as a four-time Emmy-nominated writer and producer (Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy) and the co-Executive Producer of Homeland, but to avid readers she’s a novelist with 11 published works whose imagination has been honored by numerous institutions, including the American Library Association in both their Best Books and Notable Books categories.

Reviews

[Nicholas Pang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure what it was that caused me to fall in love with this book. A main character who seemed a bit of a kindred spirit maybe, enough intrigue in the plot to keep it moving, maybe it was the fact that I first heard about and started searching for this book before online orders were a thing and I remember well spending hours picking through second-hand bookstore shelves until I abandoned it – only to find it on kindle years later. In any case, it didn't disappoint. I've ordered a hard copy and will undoubtedly return to it.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern women's fiction. Different. Three women who were friends in college reunite in New Orleans for a rape trial. Weird dynamics. Were they/are they really friends? Was one of them really raped? Is another crazy? And does the main character have an epiphany? An interesting read.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a book with the characters self reflecting while being there for a friend, if they were really friends) during one of theirs rape trial. None of the characters were likable. The story was slow that I got bored but finished it to see what happened. I didn't get the answer. Waste of my time reading. Glad it was a free book from Amazon Prime.

[Linda Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book came to me via my friend, April. I believe that the author is a friend of hers. Knowing that I'm an author myself, she lent it to me. I
It pains me to say, since the book is written by a friend of a friend, I didn't really like this story at all. Nora is the most believable character of them all. But even she is a bit strange. A taxi driver, Leo saves her from being mugged. It turns out he was in love with Poppy, Nora's college friend. Both of the women have been summoned to New Orleans for what they think is a vacation. Instead it's to support Simone at her rape trial. I couldn't sympathize with Simone because there was nothing about her that made me feel she'd been raped. She was going to go home even before a verdict was reached. And the whole story line that Poppy was crazy and that her father had buried a baby in the basement of their home was too over the top in the scheme of things. Even more so when she dug up cat bones instead.

Poppy's estranged husband, Adam was so flat that in the end maybe Nora deserved him. The characters were uninteresting and disjointed from the entire story.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the character of Nora. I believed her feelings and the things that she experienced. I did find that the cab driver who saved her was connected to one of her goods friends from years back hard to believe. Some coincidences are easy to believe this not so much.

[Bridget Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story wasn't what I expected. It's a story about self reflection and friendship. It's not what I would call a 'light read' because of its subject matter. But I think the story is worth reading.

[Nancy S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I had read a number of not-so-good reviews, and thus did not expect much. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Patti Tindal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love books situated in New Orleans. I like the characters but I felt a little cheated at the end

[Maura Alia Badji · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unbelievable and unlikable characters, racial stereotypes, and loose plot threads galore. A waste of the NOLA setting.