A Day in Summer

by J.L. Carr

A Day in Summer is the first novel by J. L. Carr, published in 1963. The story is set in the fictional village of Great Minden on the day of its annual Feast (or fair) where RAF veteran Peplow arrives to seek retribution for the death of his son.\n\nCarr started the novel as a part of written work for classes of the Workers' Educational Association and described it as his most technically ambitious novel, so it was \"foolhardy to start with\".Carr sent duplicate copies of the novel to publishers to consider and it was accepted by both the 7th and 8th publishers at the same time.The publishers paid an advance of £50 for the novel.

Genres: Fiction, English Literature, Summer, Novels, British Literature

219 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Carr was born in Thirsk Junction, Carlton Miniott, Yorkshire, into a Wesleyan Methodist family. His father Joseph, the eleventh son of a farmer, went to work for the railways, eventually becoming a station master for the North Eastern Railway. Carr was given the same Christian name as his father and the middle name Lloyd, after David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer. He adopted the names Jim and James in adulthood. His brother Raymond, who was also a station master, called him Lloyd.

Carr's early life was shaped by failure. He attended the village school at Carlton Miniott. He failed the scholarship exam, which denied him a grammar school education, and on finishing his school career he also failed to gain admission to teacher training college. Interviewed at Goldsmiths' College, London, he was asked why he wanted to be a teacher. Carr answered: "Because it leaves so much time for other pursuits." He was not accepted. Over forty years later, after his novel The Harpole Report was a critical and popular success, he was invited to give a talk at Goldsmiths'. He replied that the college once had its chance of being addressed by him.
He worked for a year as an unqualified teacher — one of the lowest of the low in English education — at South Milford Primary School, where he became involved in a local amateur football team which was startlingly successful that year. This experience he developed into the novel How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup. He then successfully applied to a teacher training college in Dudley. In 1938 he took a year out from his teaching career to work as an exchange teacher in Huron, South Dakota in the Great Plains. Much of the year was a struggle to survive in what was a strangely different culture to him; his British salary converted into dollars was pitifully inadequate to meet American costs of living. This experience gave rise to his novel The Battle of Pollocks Crossing.

At the end of his year in the USA Carr continued his journey westward and found himself travelling through the Middle East and the Mediterranean as the Second World War loomed. He arrived in France in September 1939 and reached England, where he volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force. He was trained as an RAF photographer and stationed in West Africa, later serving in Britain as an intelligence officer, an experience he translated into fiction with A Season in Sinji.

At the end of the War he married Sally (Hilda Gladys Sexton) and returned to teaching. He was appointed headmaster of Highfields Primary School in Kettering, Northamptonshire, a post he filled from 1952 to 1967 in a typically idiosyncratic way which earned the devotion of staff and pupils alike. He returned to Huron, South Dakota, in 1957 to teach again on an exchange visit, when he wrote and published himself a social history of The Old Timers of Beadle County.

In 1967, having written two novels, he retired from teaching to devote himself to writing. He produced and published from his own Quince Tree Press a series of 'small books' designed to fit into a pocket: some of them selections from English poets, others brief monographs about historical events, or works of reference. In order to encourage children to read, each of the "small books" was given two prices, the lower of which applied only to children. As a result, Carr received several letters from adults in deliberately childish writing in an attempt to secure the discount.

He also carried on a single-handed campaign to preserve and restore the parish church of Saint Faith at Newton in the Willows, which had been vandalised and was threatened with redundancy. Carr, who appointed himself its guardian, came into conflict with the vicar of the benefice, and higher church authorities, in his attempts to save the church. The building was saved, but his crusade was also a failure in that redundancy was not averted and the building is now a scientific study centre.

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the wonderfully intimate A Month in the Country I absolutely wanted to read more from the British writer J.L. Carr (1912-1994). That is why I sank my teeth into this ‘A Day in Summer’, published in 1963 as the writer's literary debut. Just like (apparently) many other readers, I'm left a bit disappointed. Carr was very ambitious in his debut, perhaps too ambitious. This novel combines a thriller-like plot with a kaleidoscopic change of scenes, interspersed with existential reflections of a very gloomy kind. Certainly technically this book reminded me a lot of The Hive by the Spanish writer Cela, while also Virginia Woolf comes into the picture. But you can feel that Carr overplays his hand: it all comes across as too constructed, not quite mature yet, despite the flashes of gifted writing. I'm afraid that for me J.L. Carr will remain the author of that single resounding book. Rating 2.5 stars.

[Andy Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was Carr's debut novel and, in many ways, it shows. The secondary characters, for example, are less well-drawn than in his later works, and the plot itself is both quite deeply contrived and convoluted. Having said that, however, I really loved this book (as I have loved all of Carr's writing) and look forward to reading yet more of his work.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

As per my wont, I'm going through a bit of shit at the moment. Namely insomnia so bad that I'm sweating for no earthly reason as I type this. Point: JL Carr is medicinal in his humanity. He is among the greats, but will never be regarded as such because he was funny.

Fuck em. Read Carr. Smile. Life's a gas/hope it's gonna last, nyet?

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

J. L. Carr's first novel, published in 1964, is a multifaceted view of one day in an (apparently) Midlands village, and is something of a technical challenge for a first time author. Carr himself acknowledged it as his most technically difficult book. He brings off the trick of managing a large number of characters and multiple viewpoints, together with a tapestry of interwoven stories very well. The novel is never less than engaging, and as it moves to a satisfying climax, starts to feel like a superior thriller. The large cast of characters are for the most part well drawn, if generally with a somewhat jaundiced pen, but some feel slightly underdeveloped, and I did occasionally struggle to fully grasp their motives. A Day in Summer is not as good as Carr's masterpiece, A Month in the Country, or as satisfying as The Harpole Report, but is nevertheless an enjoyable read and an accomplished first novel.

[Jose Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depois de "A Month in the Country" fiquei com curiosidade de ler mais deste autor.
Este "Um dia no Verão" tem um bom grupo de personagens, pessoas desiludidas com as suas vidas. Desesperadas por uma mudança.
Tudo se passa no dia da Feira Anual da aldeia de Great Minden. A rotina da aldeia altera-se e muito acontece. Será para melhor? Os destinos dos personagens, com este autor, nunca é o que esperavamos!
Uma boa leitura!

[Buchdoktor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peplow wird an diesem Sommertag einen Mann töten und sich anschließend das Leben nehmen. Mit dem Dampfzug ist der Kriegsveteran an die britische Küste unterwegs. Sein Opfer arbeitet beim Jahrmarkt und der Treffpunkt der beiden Männer scheint willkürlich wählbar. Peplow wollte nie im Mittelpunkt stehen; durch den Unfalltod seines 10jährigen Sohnes wurde er in die Öffentlichkeit gezerrt. Peplow konnte nicht ahnen, dass er in Great Minden ausgerechnet zwei seiner Kameraden antreffen wird, mit denen er im Zweiten Weltkrieg in der Air Force diente. Herbert Ruskin sitzt im Rollstuhl und erkennt durch sein Fernglas Peplow schon beim Aussteigen aus dem Zug; der ehemalige Frauenschwarm Bellenger liegt im Sterben. Zu Anfang könnte man als Leser vermuten, der Plot würde Peplows Weg folgen - zum vollendeten Ziel oder zum Scheitern seiner Pläne. Doch so wie Besucher auf einen Jahrmarkt strömen tauchen nach und nach weitere Personen auf, deren Beziehungen zueinander vom außenstehenden Leser erst ergründet werden müssen. Im Geflecht des Dorfes gibt es einige Leerstellen, Menschen, die einfach verschwanden, Beziehungen, von denen bis heute nur die Beteiligten wissen, und damit Zusammenhänge, die sich dem Leser wie in einem Krimi-Ratespiel erst Schritt für Schritt erschließen.

In der Woche vor Kirchweih liegen im Dorf die Nerven bloß. Peplow sieht durch sein Fernglas alles und nervt diejenigen, die sich beobachtet fühlen. Sein Ausschnitt aus dem Dorfleben ist dabei erheblich weiter gefasst als gut für die Beteiligten sein kann. Der Pfarrer als zugezogener Städter fühlt sich von seiner Gemeinde und vom Kirchenvorstand Lamb nicht respektiert; seine Frau Georgie macht ihn mit ihrer Untreue zum Gespött der Menschen. Der kleine Nicholas Bellinger ahnt, dass er nach dem Tod seines Vaters kein Zuhause mehr haben wird. Lehrer Croser ist noch in der Probezeit an der privaten anglikanischen Dorf-Schule und spielt mit dem Feuer, indem er aus mehreren Liebesbeziehungen den maximalen Profit für sich herauszuschlagen sucht. Wie einen Schakal, der wartet, dass von der Beute anderer etwas für ihn abfällt, sieht Ruskin den Lehrer. Crosers Direktorin trauert einer Jugendliebe nach und in der Familie Thickness schiebt das Familienoberhaupt seine Arbeitsscheu dem zwanzig Jahre zurückliegenden Krieg in die Schuhe. Die Leute in Great Minden brauchen kein Fernsehen und keine Bibliothek, der lüsterne Dorfklatsch genügt hier völlig, meint Georgie zu Peplow. Doch das System Dorf und Peplows Männerbund aus der Kriegszeit könnten sich als Steine auf seinem Weg entpuppen. Die Handlung spielt an einem einzigen Tag und steuert auf den möglichen Höhepunkt zu, ob Peplow den Mann erschießen wird, der direkt vor der Tür der Peplows ihren Sohn totgefahren hat. Schauplätze sind Privathäuser, Schule, Frisörsalon, der Friedhof und das Jahrmarktsgelände.

Die Zusammenführung aller Handlungsstränge zum Finale gelingt Carr in seinem ersten Roman (1964) souverän, wenn auch einige Lösungen aus dem Zylinder gezaubert wirken und nicht alle Personen tiefgründig charakterisiert werden. Für einen Romanerstling (der als drittes Buch Carrs auf Deutsch erscheint) finde ich den Plot und die Analyse des Systems Dorf grandios; aber man sollte komplexe Beziehungen vieler Figuren mögen.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the way Carr writes, and the more is the pity because I am not sure I should have stayed with this relentlessly bleak book to the end. In spite of its mild title, "A Day in Summer" is definitely no idyl. It starts with bereft Peplow deciding to kill the lout who ran over his son and ends with the rector of Great Minden setting fire to his overgrown churchyard in disgust at the meanness of parishioners who refuse to pay for its upkeep. All the characters have been disappointed and damaged by life in more or less severe ways: Ruskin never managed to get over losing his legs towards the end of the war, and spends his time spying on neighbors; the schoolmarm Adela Prosser turned into the ultimate repressed spinster after her lover failed to show up on the day they had decided to elope; her underling Sidney Croser gets himself manipulated both by his fiancée, the vapid hairdresser Effie, and by the rector's wife Georgie, who is his mistress. Fred, the fairground employee who ran over little Tom is a sadistic monster loathed even by his own father. The most convoluted part of the plot concerns Ruskin and his neighbor Bellenger, who were colleagues during the war. When Bellenger went missing and was presumed dead during a mission, Ruskin slept with his mistress who then fell pregnant. Bellenger survived and Ruskin gave up the woman, who abandoned her new born. Bellenger, who never learnt about her fling with Ruskin, brought up Nicholas as his own son and never figured out why the woman had left him. At the end of this rather eventful summer's day, Bellenger dies, Peplow finds he can't kill Fred in cold blood and adopts Nicholas, while Ruskin himself shoots Fred. This lurid plot obviously doesn't work on a realistic level, but Carr doesn't quite pull it off as a fable either. As D.J. Taylor says in his introduction to this edition, at this point in his career Carr was only "a gifted amateur still learning his trade" and I couldn't agree more.

[M. Sarki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still a very good book even though it is not up to par with A Month in the Country. Looking forward to reading more from this quite sophisticated, but simple, wordsmith.

[Chrystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Month in the Country, A Day in Summer; both about men damaged by war. A Month in the Country is the better of the two; its sadness is relieved by gentle humor and the overall tone is hopeful. A Day in Summer is much darker. We are immersed into the country village of Great Minden on a summer's day, following the lives of its inhabitants. The tone of this book is depressing, but Carr's writing is fluid and he keeps a sustained tension to the end.

Not sure about the ending, but I enjoyed the book overall. A very good writer.

[Leselaunen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich habe meine Liebe für den Dumont-Verlag spätestens entdeckt, als ich Als wir unbesiegbar waren von Alice Adams gelesen habe. Deshalb wurde es wieder Zeit für einen Roman aus diesem Verlag. Mit Ein Tag im Sommer von J.L. Carr war es dann soweit. Die Geschichte dreht sich um einen Vater, der Rache für den Tod seines Sohnes üben will.

Darum gehts

Im englischen Great Minden findet jedes Jahr zur gleichen Zeit im Sommer ein großer Jahrmarkt statt. Peplow, Kriegsveteran und Vater eines toten Sohnes, kehrt an den Ort zurück, mit dem seine Vergangenheit unweigerlich verbunden ist. Dort will er Rache für den viel zu frühen Tod seines Sohnes nehmen. In Great Minden begegnen ihm alte Bekannte und neue Gesichter. Alle Begegnungen hinterlassen Spuren. Eine von ihnen ganz besonders.

Die Vorderansicht des Buches zeigt ein Riesenrad. Dies ist sinnbildlich für die gesamte Geschichte. Denn in Great Minden ist wieder Jahrmarkt. Der große Tag für die kleine Stadt ist Dreh- und Angelpunkt der Erzählung von J.L. Carr. Eine erste Identifikation mit dem Inhalt ist durch das passende Motiv auf dem Cover also direkt gelungen. Ich habe die Hardcover-Edition erhalten, die sehr schön anzusehen ist und ein Lesebändchen enthält, welches mir immer sehr lieb ist. Das Zitat auf der Rückseite des Buches, über dem Klappentext ist ein optischer Hingucker und so gefällt mir auch der Buchrücken optisch gut.

J.L. Carr sagt mir zwar etwas, jedoch habe ich nie eines seiner Bücher gelesen. Ein Tag im Sommer ist somit das erste vom Autor und für mich ein guter Einstieg gewesen. Ich habe wieder feststellen dürfen, dass mich Geschichten interessieren, die sich mit dem Menschen als solchen beschäftigen. Mit seinen Gedanken, Ängsten und Beweggründen. Wenn dann verschiedenste Charaktere beleuchtet werden, ist das umso aufregender. Und das ist Carr mit diesem Roman durchaus gelungen. Es fällt schwer, einen Hauptprotagonisten festzumachen, da nicht nur Peplow sehr detailliert beschrieben wird. Ein Tag im Sommer spielt nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und zeichnet leidende Menschen auf der Suche nach Erlösung.

Der Autor switcht zwischen den Charakteren hin und her, was mich anfangs noch leicht verwirrte. Durch die kluge Erzählweise und die detaillierten Beschreibungen der einzelnen Personen, war ich aber schnell klar darüber, um wen es ging und wen welches Schicksal ereilte. Unglückliche Ehen, Kriegsverletzungen, Betrug und Tod werden im Buch thematisiert. Die einzelnen und sehr persönlichen Geschichten werden zu einem Ganzen zusammengefügt und bilden diesen Roman.

Bis auf die zwischenzeitliche Verwirrung, fand ich es sehr interessant, die Bewohner von Great Minden kennen zu lernen. Manche waren mir sofort sympathisch, andere habe ich bis zum Schluss nie verstanden und wieder andere konnte ich gar nicht leiden. So sollte es sein, denn das hält die Spannung aufrecht und lässt mitfiebern. Ein kleiner Kritikpunkt ist, dass die Kapitel nicht klar gekennzeichnet waren und ich anfangs immer etwas unsicher war, ob der aktuelle Handlungsstrang beendet ist. Besonders das Ende hat mich sehr zufrieden gestimmt, auch und gerade, weil es neben Freude auch Tragik bereit hielt.

Der Mensch und sein persönliches Schicksal stehen im Vordergrund und formen die Geschichte zu einem großen Ganzen. Ein gelungenes Buch.

[Bill FromPA · Rating 4 out of 5]

After greatly enjoying J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, I was pleased to discover that I had a copy of his earlier novel, A Day in Summer . I had planned to read it in the near future, but when I discovered that it is a story of revenge, I wanted to read it as soon as I could.

It starts out like a thriller: At dawn a train approaches town. A man with a gun is on board that train. He is going to the town to shoot and kill another man.

But once the train reaches town, the small English village of Great Minden, the novel branches into a number of different stories. We are introduced to over a dozen of the town’s residents, briefly hopping from one character’s point of view to another’s and back again, continuously seeing previously introduced characters from others’ viewpoints. As the title implies, the action takes place in a single day, divided into “Morning”, “Afternoon, “Evening”, and “Night”.

The interweaving of various viewpoints formed a kind of net for my attention: in following all these stories, no single narrative strand dominated to the point of boredom, and I didn’t even get irritated at the relatively long delay in getting the revenge plot moving forward.

Among the impressive aspects of A Month in the Country was the way in which Carr was able to quickly sketch in a number of English villagers as individuals without having them ever fall into “types”. That is not the case here at all: most of the characters fall into a familiar fictional category: bitter disabled veteran, sexually frustrated spinster, young Lothario “all prick and no pence”. Most of the characters reveal aspects beyond these thumbnail summaries, but for me never achieved believable individuality.

Similarly, while A Month in the Country hardly felt like a novel at all – it seemed to pass more like an actual brief interval of one’s own life – the “day” in this novel seems entirely a literary creation. Multiple characters’ lives reach a crisis point during the story’s passage from morning to night, and the onsets and resolutions of these crises, depending on coincidence and chance occurrence, seem all too conveniently constructed. Where Month unfolded like life as it is lived, Day is very much a work of fiction (and to a great extent one meeting Miss Prism’s definition of the term).

This seems like a lot of fault finding, but A Day in Summer mainly disappoints if one expects another A Month in the Country. Taken on its own terms, it is a reasonably engaging novel – the progress of the various narrative threads held my interest, and, starting in the “Evening” section of the novel, the revenge plot starts to pay out some of its expected scenes of suspense and action. The other plot threads also contribute to the novel’s momentum in the closing pages as they resolve in ways that I, at least, did not always anticipate.

[Ian Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent years looking for this book once I found out it was a novel because I saw a movie adaptation of it that I’d taped off the telly one night but missed the first couple of minutes of because I was aiming for another show altogether. So I spent years looking for the movie without its title or without a notion of who wrote it or who was in it. When I did find out, I tried really hard to find the novel in my local bookshops (because I like to shop local when I can) and eventually resorted to the internet because I knew it would be there somewhere. Anyway...

Peplow has come to the town of Great Minden on the day of its annual fair because he knows that the man who killed his son will be there...

But there’s also an old friend from the war, crippled in a plane crash, who lives there, as well as their old CO and his son, roughly the same age as Peplow’s boy was. There’s also a whole undercurrent of small-town hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness. We meet a wide slice of the village population over the course of this day, from just before dawn until a few hours after dark. Honestly, it’s like Mr Carr read or listened to Under Milk Wood and thought it needed a little more gunplay.

But it works brilliantly. If I can carry the analogy a little further, Reverend Eli Jenkins is married to Polly Garter, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard still has a husband living with her and Captain Cat was maimed in the last war...

Where it differs from Dylan Thomas’ play for voices is that there’s a cheerful cynicism to the writing that would spoil the whole tone of the novel if we didn’t know that the author wasn’t enjoying himself as much as he is. Carr has as keen an eye as Thomas but he writes a little closer to the bone, possibly because the only person who ever let Thomas down was himself.

If there’s a fault to the writing it would be the coincidence of Peplow running into Ruskin and Bellenger (his Air Force colleagues) on the second-most momentous day of his life. But, as he wanders through the town like a First or Second Voice, you get a sense of the numinous and portentous looming over him so it doesn’t feel quite so stage-managed. And it’s worth it because the townsfolk all have their own stories to tell, or try to hide, and the gradual unravelling of the facade (if facades unravel, that is) is tremendous to behold.

I’m glad I finally found this book and that it was worth the wait to read it.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars Perhaps too many points of view for the length of the book, which makes it hard to know all the characters, and the plot jumps around a little bit, but still an enjoyable read. Some expected reveals and others were unexpected. I thought the ending was satisfying. (The feeling of it in parts reminded me of O, the Brave Music- mostly the parts with the vicar’s wife.) I am glad that it wasn’t the first Carr novel that I read, but it shows the potential that will be realized in A Month in the Country, which I consider a near perfect book.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not as good as A Month in the Country, this book makes for an entertaining read. Carr does an admirable job of sketching the characters of an English village and their personal dramas.

[Delphine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another glorious J.L. Carr, one of the best kept secrets of English literature.

Set halfway the twentieth century, A day in summer traces one day in the lives of the inhabitants of Great Minden, a small village. A stranger to the village arrives by train: a respectacle-looking man named Peplow wants to shoot a man who ran down his son, and commit suicide afterwards.

J.L. Carr introduces us to a wide range of characters: the Rector with his demand for a clean(er) graveyard, Peplows former war squadron colleagues Ruskin (a cripple) and Bellinger (who is dying), the horny teacher Croser, the poor Thickness family. Despite many interactions, the author underlines their essential loneliness:

It was a world of strangers, each engrossed with his own tremendous problems, sometimes throwing out an arm as if to clutch another slipping away in the current, struggling ridiculously like a spider in bathwater racing towards the plug-hole.

We are always alone, he thought, no one really knows us and yet, when we are gone, some part of many others goes with us.

J.L. Carr draws their pettiness and worries compassionately, with a strong melancholic undertow. Don't expect a happy end, as this day in the life of the villagers of Great Minden ends with arson, murder and suicide.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

As other reviewers here rightly say, this novel is nowhere near as good as 'A Month in the Country', but it has some affecting and poignant moments. At times, it is reminiscent of a Larkin poem such as 'Home is so sad' - 'the music in the piano stool, That vase' - because there is a wonderful eye for the minor domestic or sartorial detail that produces an effect out of all proportion to the object's significance in itself. There's a sense throughout of waste, abandonment, failed potential and a desire to escape from the banal mundanity of it all. That's probably why I enjoyed it, but I couldn't help noticing how sex is such a part of the characters' dissatisfaction and despair. The 1950s rural England depicted here is a long way from H.E. Bates. On a Larkinesque note, the book was published in 1963, which is supposedly when sexual intercourse began. It's hard to believe the village Carr depicts will ever catch the wave of the Swinging Sixties...it's probably still struggling on now, a world of sweaty, angry, bewildered men and deeply unhappy women waiting for trains that never arrive. Such is England.

[Peter Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent novel from a writer probably unknown today and not well known when he was alive.Time to resurrect his writings.Slightly old fashioned(first published in 1963) and referring to the 1950s this short novel is both serious and humourous,very well constructed and satisfying.It reveals the various activities and thoughts of the inhabitants of a small village in England on a fete day when a stranger arrives to kill a travelling showman.Interest lies with the problems in the lives of various villages and whether the stranger will accomplish his task

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein sehr gutes Buch, auch wenn es nicht ganz mit "Ein Monat auf dem Land" mithalten kann. Es wird wohl nicht mein letztes Buch von J. L. Carr gewesen sein :)

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently the first novel from this excellent writer. I really enjoyed it, perhaps not as much as A month in the country ,but hey, still an interesting, easy read.

[Grier · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Jürgen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bewertung folgt.

[Sandwichqueso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bastante entretenido y con mucho humor ❤️

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phew! I had feared J.L. Carr might be a one-hit wonder with his glorious 'A Month in the Country', more so after wincing my way through 'The Battle of Pollock's Crossing'. Here we get long train journeys to a backwater, intrigue and insurrection as in the latter daft outing, but it's carried with a much better balance of humour, tension and descriptive finesse. It read to me like a precursor of 'A Month in the Country': beyond the similar titles, this carries through further with English pastoral sweetness to match the melancholy nostalgia in its human stories.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Day in Summer is not as good as A Month in the Country, certainly not. Fairly enjoyable is as far as I can go.

[Patti Flanagin · Rating 4 out of 5]

J L Carr is a master at time, place, and character. The multiple characters were fixed firmly in my mind, drawing me into their lives and evoking strong feelings of pity, empathy and, finally, happiness for Peplow.