Summer coming

by Jane Gaskell

159 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Gaskell was born Jane Gaskell Denvil on 7 July 1941, in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, England (previously in the county of Lancashire). She is the great grandniece of the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Her first novel, Strange Evil, was written when she was 14-years-old (published two years later, in 1957). In 1963 Gaskell married truck driver Gerald Lynch; and in 1965 their daughter, Lucy Emma, was born. (Their marriage ended in divorce in 1968.)

In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet, Sweet Summer.

China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction.

Wikipedia®

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second Jane Gaskell novel I've read. The first, Attic Summer, was published in the early 1960s and followed a 16 year old girl leaving home. 'Summer Coming' was published ten years later and follows a woman in her thirties. Both have the same striking prose style and intensity of feeling, but 'Summer Coming' is harsher to read. The first person narrator (whose name I can neither remember nor find in the book) recounts a period of chaotic days in diary format. She seems to be in a manic state throughout, fixated upon getting her ex-husband back, seemingly as an escape from her abusive and dysfunctional family. In between pursuit of the ex, she quits her job, decides to write a novel, drinks heavily, shoplifts, darts around London in taxis, and has bitingly sharp conversations with everyone she meets. Her narrative voice is brilliant, yet quite exhausting to read:

I wrote and wrote. I got a lot of prose done and it is glorious. I really go at things once I decide to start on them. It's because I'm a precipitate break-neck Gemini. Timon of course is Leo, strong and king-like. Whereas Digory has Pisces rising, like damp. I love to be alone, to write like fire, to happily split infinitives. Every now and then, when I really do feel I need the sound of a human voice, I cough.
As Coco Chanel once said (she invented those jackets) he who does not enjoy his own company is usually right.

While trying to find a point of comparison, Muriel Spark popped into my head. While the length and events of the book would not be entirely out of place in Spark's oeuvre, the style is utterly different. Spark lets you observe from a distance; Gaskell plunges you into the disorientating maelstrom of the narrator's life without space to breathe. There is a theme of the family flat flooding, overflowing with water as it does with people (and a pet monkey). The narrative is full of impetuous decisions, off-hand cruelties, and memorably peculiar details dropped into acerbic conversations:

"Did I choose you," he asked, after taking a deep-ish breath, "because I wanted to cherish you? I know I always said so. Are you now telling me that was my mistake?"
"People who want to cherish," I said, "are basically sadists, I think. No, hold on a moment, Timon. I don't mean you. I don't think you did want to cherish me. Just my beastly leg made you think so, it often forces people into mistaking their own true reactions to me as a person." I held my refilled glass to the simulated firelight, and knew it cast interesting shadows forever amber on my face.
"You mean," Timon intently watched me, "that Digory is a sadist?"
"I don't know," I said. "He's very weak. He likes to feel needed, and God knows a crippled girl-friend is no challenge to a man, now is she?"
"What's that noise?" Timon asked. "A clicking noise. As of someone gently rapping..."
"The children's jumping beans," I said, "friendly little things, wakened by fire."
I went on: "Digory drinks so much. And he's promiscuous."
"Embarrassing for you," Timon said.
Be careful, I thought to myself, or he'll want me fumigated. And all this, he'll be thinking, in the shadow of Harrods.

I didn't notice the Edgar Alan Poe reference in that exchange before! Very sly. Events culminate with the dramatic return of the narrator's father, and her exit from the family home. In these final few pages, it becomes clear just how abusive the household was and still is. For all the picaresque details and witticisms, this is essentially a grim story of a disabled woman and her children in a dangerous and unstable living situation. The narrator keeps moving, talking, drinking, and generally doing things because there is nowhere safe for her to stop. 'Summer Coming' is elegantly written, with particularly striking dialogue, but paints a deeply unsettling portrait of family life.

[Garick Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anna's review pretty much covered all the bases, so just a few random thoughts: This is the seventh novel by Gaskell that I've read (although it is quite short at 124 pages), and a welcome return to form after two-star reviews for Strange Evil, King's Daughter, Atlan, and The City. Also fairly expensive at about $ 64 for my paperback copy, but worth it. Gaskell was quite brilliant at times.

What does tattalata mean? I was able to look up most of the unfamiliar words and British slang terms, but I couldn't find that one. Out of Gaskell's thirteen published novels, four have the word Summer in the title; I don't know what that means, if anything.