The Summer After the Funeral

by Jane Gardam

Following her father's death, a sixteen-year-old English girl spends an unsettling summer convinced that she has lived before as Emily Bronte.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels

151 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Jane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

Reviews

[Deanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

At last, an early Gardam title to defeat my earlier assurance that she can write anything and still win me over.

Here, the grief-troubled, naturally religiosity-soaked, adolescent daughter of a late vicar writes long-winded youthful letters in which the plot and the richest part of Gardam’s signature characterization are diluted to the point that I frequently lost track of the point.

Thankfully it’s a short novel that didn’t put me off Gardam, just made me a little homesick for her more mature work.

[Chrissie]

************************

The Flight of the Maidens 4 stars
Bilgewater 4 stars
Faith Fox 4 stars
Crusoe's Daughter 4 stars
Old Filth 4 stars
The Man in the Wooden Hat 4 stars
God on the Rocks 3 stars
The Queen of the Tambourine 3 stars
A Long Way from Verona 3 stars
The Hollow Land 2 stars
The Summer After the Funeral TBR
Missing the Midnight TBR

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book, and falls just short of five stars because the transformation of Athene was somewhat hard to understand.

I was especially impressed by how many characters were clearly (and delightfully) delineated in such a short book (really a novella). While it takes a chapter or two to sort them out (especially because alll have given names and nicknames like "Boo," and "Beams" ("Phoebe at the font," as Gardam puts it). The central characters are a recently widowed mother and her three children, and each comes through as interesting and a distinctive personality. None of them is judged by the author; they are just depicted as they are in her imagination.

Even the story's background is masterfully etched. Scenes are described as if they were oil paintings, and the comments of unnamed people on a bus or in a public space are as real as if they had been overheard (and perhaps they were by Gardam in real life).

The story is very, very British in cultural character, which I enjoyed, but also timeless. It was a fine way to spend a spring day.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, but I have a problem with the middle class milieu, daughters of vicars with nicknames such as Beams and Boo, still it is well done. ( 2016 note: wouldn't bother me now).

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I visit my mother
I feel I am turning into Emily Brontë,

my lonely life around me like a moor,
my ungainly body stumping over the mud flats with a look of transformation
that dies when I come in the kitchen door.

- Anne Carson, The Glass Essay

As in this poem, Athene fears she is becoming Emily Brontë. Uprooted by the death of her father, she is unseen by her siblings and mother. She is passed from house to house over the summer, always a guest and always uncomfortable. She has turned toward the power of Emily Brontë's work over the years, but finds it doesn't help her now. A very slim novel, this is an early work of Gardam's, and feels a bit uncooked. That being said, there are many elements that work very well here, particularly Athene's discomfort, her overspilling emotions, and Gardam's keen eye for the hypocrisy of the middle classes. Though the characterisations don't always hold together, it's a compelling, vivid book that I very much enjoyed.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early work and I assume originally a YA book. Not as good as Gardam's later work, but with her usual deft touches in depicting a character. She has the same assurance as an artist drawing a likeness with a few lines.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an early Jane Gardam but her deftness at character development was there from the beginning. While the story is mostly about Athene, the eldest daughter of the vicar whose funeral is noted in the title, each of the other children, have their turn as well. After her husband's death, the mother has to leave the vicarage and find another place for herself and her family. She was left "without a bean" by her husband who had confidence in her ability to look after herself. So she sent the children off to stay with various friends and relatives for the summer holidays while she got on with preparing for the rest of her life. Sebastian and Phoebe Seemed to land on their feet but Athene was bumped around from one place to another - mostly no one seemed to want her around. But men were bewitched by her beauty and that was a complicating factor.
This is a quick read with all the charm of Gardam's observations of people's quirks told with realism but no judgment. Can't wait to read the next one I got from the library. Gardam is a gem.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is very much an early Gardam. There are too many characters and her style is not fully developed, but of course, it's an early novel.

Still, you can see the beginnings of the fine writer she has become: the humor, the insight into character, the fine humanness of her people. Very much worth reading.

[Catherine Bateson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely - deft, quirky - with some of the themes and elements that I loved in Bilgewater. This seems to be the first time I've read this novel - why?

[Alison Ivey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m done with Jane Gardam. This book is ridiculous and the ending such as it is, is just as silly as all the rest of it.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sixteen year old Athene is at a loss after her clergyman father dies. It means that she, her mother, sisters and brother have to leave the vicarage. It's the start of the school holidays so the children are palmed off to various distant relatives and friends. We follow Athene, Sebastian and Phoebe over the next few weeks. So this is actually a book for older children, but written with the expected panache from this, one of my favourite authors.

Athene is dispatched to an aunt (Posie) who is hardly welcoming at her seaside hotel. Athene Price is memorable for her being so attractive and being too good to be true. It's her we follow for most of the book. Later in August, she goes to stay in the North East with at first, Sybil Bowles and then older Primrose, Here it becomes all to much and she just leaves. By the quayside she meets an artist and stays.

All this time her sister is somewhere else. "My name is Beams, short for Moonbeams (big glasses), Phoebe at the font. Ugly as sin. Alas for me". Opposite to her sister, so not an attractive child. But boy can she write. This is her diary (the best part of the book) absolutely hilarious. Brilliant. Palmed off on the Padshaws near Rhyl. When at six her father takes her to see a shrink she writes "I love untidy rooms usually - not like Athene who's always putting paper clips into envelopes and straitening the fire tongs". (whoever could be that tidy?)

And lastly Sebastian staying at an Anglican community with his friend Lucien. It's only later we hear his wonderful conversation with 80 year old Father Ignatious But soon we are back to Athene, arriving at Auntie Barbara's boarding school. Obviously no children and more to the pint, No Barbara. Only one young master marking exam papers. Another excellent chapter, the book has seemed to improve as it went on. They (nearly) all meet up at the end, relatives and all.

[Nicola Friar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the aftermath of a death in the Price family. Siblings Athene, Sebastian, and Phoebe are split up across the country with various friends and relatives following the death of their clergyman father as their mother attempts to secure them a new home. The story mainly focuses on Athene as she travels between relatives and experiences a taste of adult life for the first time. She also believes she may have lived before as Emily Brontë, something that crops up throughout the book, and culminates with a visit to the Bronte parsonage. It's a haunting and ethereal novel and although not much happens plot-wise, the journey and development of Athene as she learns to love and grieve is fascinating.

[Caro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very early Gardam, but with her trademark characters and staccato style. The elderly father of the family has just died, and his much younger widow sends their three children, all in their teens, around England to stay with friends, acquaintances and relatives for the summer while she finds a new place for them all to live. The friends, etc., display varying enthusiasm for their visits, and the children go a bit astray from time to time. The mother is particularly well drawn, seen mostly through her enthusiastic, bossy, stream of consciousness letters to the unwitting hosts. Not quite as odd as Bilgewater but equally good on characters.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This delightful little book is just the literary palate cleanser I needed before diving into a much more serious read, non-fiction, about a tragedy at sea. Having been uplifted and charmed by Gardam's signature writing style, her wit, and her humor, I'm once again reminded of the gem of a writer that Gardam is.

This book is an early one in Gardam's career, and does not quite have the polish that her later works do, but it shines nonetheless; a true diamond in the rough.

[Susan Potts · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book I've read by Jane Gardam. I found it strange. It had a ring of Elizabeth Jane Howard, but nowhere near as good. I enjoyed it overall, and gather that it's an early work, so will probably try some later works by this writer.

[Merrilie Rowley · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a quirky story ! Not my favourite Jane Gardam but it certainly had its moments !

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as an audiobook which made it feel very intimate. I especailly liked the way some of the narrative was not told through the voice of Athene/Mim/Athie (how many names did the poor girl have!) but how people reacted to her. What parents do to their children...

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to love this so much so long ago. So long ago, that I had completely forgotten about the Em Brontë/reincarnation bit! omg. It's absolutely hysterically funny, and not annoyingly twee at all, which is not a feat that Jane Gardam manages all that often.

[Barbara Mader · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read, but I first read it only 2 years ago.

I keep forgetting to add the children's books I read . . . .

[Sonia Gensler]

Listened to the audiobook. Clever and quirky, just as one expects from Jane Gardam.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was strange. I wasn't able to identify with the characters.