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Blue Summer: A Novel
At forty, Cal Shaw has seen better days, that's for sure, but it wasn't always like this. He grew up with his brother, Alvin, and his sister Julia, in the small Maine town of Baxter, confident in his own capabilities, especially regarding music. He took his happy life for granted, as lucky children often do. But everything changed when he was ten and his dad died in a freak accident. Soon, trouble, mostly in the form of a violent stepfather, found a home-his home. As an escape, the Shaw kids turned to music lessons with family friend Uncle Gus, but it turns out no one can escape the violence and grief that rains down on the Shaws. Blue Summer is the story of the Shaw family's undoing, and Cal's struggle to grow up in a world determined to break him. Even his music threatens to take him down with booze-filled nights and one-night stands. As Cal tries to make sense of his existence, living as far away from his family as he can, a snippet of melody comes to him-timeless and haunting. But before he can finish it, his past asserts itself with a phone call that Uncle Gus is dying and it's time to come home and face an altogether different kind of music. In this story, author Jim Nichols writes a riveting coming-of-age novel that examines the melancholy fate of a boy torn apart by loss and domestic abuse, and the justice he eventually delivers, all the while writing a beautiful melody to counter it all, a song he calls 'Blue Summer.'
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 8, 2020
8 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
Jim Nichols
16 books39 followersWinner of 2021 Maine Book Award for Fiction! Life-long Maine kid until October 2020, when we moved to Santa Fe...planning to split time in Maine. Winner of 2016 Maine Book Award for Fiction. Runner-up in 2012. Work published in Esquire, elimae, Portland Monthly, Zoetrope ASE, Narrative, River City, American Fiction, Clackamas Review, paris transcontinental, others...winner of Kurt Johnson Prize for Fiction (2014) and Willamette Fiction Award (2000), collection Slow Monkeys and Other Stories (2003), novel Hull Creek (2011), novel-in-stories Closer All The Time (2015) and my latest: Blue Summer (2020).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
October 25, 2020
Lovely writing and such a poignant story. Jim Nichols knows that sometimes a melancholy jazz tune is the only thing you can find to accompany you in your sadness.
October 13, 2020
Music is powerful. Faced with a trying situation, even that sometimes maddening memory, when looking for peace we often turn to music. A particular song, composition or even a melody can move one to another place, chase away the turmoil and bring peace.
Crafted and expanded upon from a short story, Jim Nichols’ new novel, Blue Summer, joins esteemed work by this prolific short-story writer and novelist. Nichols’ previous book, Closer All The Time, was the 2016 Maine Book Award for Fiction winner. Two previously published novels, Slow Monkeys and Hull Creek, have also received critical acclaim, with Hull Creek finishing as a runner-up for the 2012 Maine Book Awards for Fiction.
In Blue Summer, music is the companion on one man’s journey for redemption. Cal Shaw, now a ward of the State of Maine serving time in a correctional facility, sits, writes and reflects on his life. It is a life of circumstance and individual challenge that will test his damaged spirit.
“So I thought I’d try to write this down. Chances are I’m no literary savant, but I promise my heart’s in the right place, and I have been a world-class bookworm for my whole pathetic life, so maybe that’ll help. Who knows? I guess we’ll see.”
It is a fitting introduction and one reminiscent of another book’s opening—that of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, as Holden Caulfield angrily opens up about “all that David Copperfield kind of crap.” In Cal Shaw, Nichols gives the reader a man humbled by experience who now looks back, accompanied by a melody — a melody that brought him back from the brink and is the same melody that will forever be his companion, bringing him memories of his youth, loss and love. It’s an exceptional beginning and an exceptional book.
Using a first-person perspective, Nichols lets Shaw tell us his story and provides us with not only a narrator but also a friend, a childhood buddy and a taxi-driving, recovering-alcoholic, cornet playing jazz musician to engage with in the process. Cal Shaw is all of that and much more, and Nichols expertly builds upon that throughout the story, adding layers to this man, some predictable and some very surprising.
In a Tampa, Florida, trailer park on the day he thinks may very well be his last, a jazz melody seeps into Shaw’s depressive state and awakens something within him, something he buried from his past. Preparing to end it all, Shaw is saved by that melody that mysteriously finds him. Music can do that, and Nichols knows that, having shared that passion with his father when he was growing up. “I grew up in a house full of music,” says Nichols. “My father was a savant who could play anything that didn’t have strings. He always had a band, where he alternated between piano and trumpet.”
The story, as Shaw reflects, is not linear, but moves back and forth from his childhood days growing up in Baxter, Maine, to his sudden departure and ultimately to his return. Life in Baxter was bucolic until the sudden death of his father. His mother, desperate to provide a life for her three children, marries a man who will undo this idyllic life with vicious abandon and will take more than one life along the way. Looking for comfort, Shaw turns to his Uncle Gus, who becomes his friend and musical mentor. Years later, receiving the news that his uncle has had a stroke, Cal now returns home where he knows the demons of his dreams lurk.
Music is powerful, and so is this story. For Shaw, this melody kept him alive and brought him home. He knew things would be different because of the music. He also knew that he and the music would work things out, together. “Now it’s about Julie and me, about our brother Alvin (yeah, Calvin and Alvin—it wasn’t my idea) and my parents and Becky and that POS Randy Pike and everybody else connected to where I grew up in Baxter, Maine; which means it’s also about tragedy that started during that bluest of summers.”
It’s what Nichols remembers, too, back in the day when he would play with his father. “Dad and I would duet at home on trumpet and trombone. My dad was the classic taciturn Yankee who never said anything emotional but could let it out when he played; I remember after my mother died listening to him play ‘their’ song in such a raw way that it was heartbreaking.” As Nichols explains it, music is more like communicating than remembering, “Sort of like my father communicating his sorrow — when Cal plays Blue Summer he’s talking to Julie.”
Crafted and expanded upon from a short story, Jim Nichols’ new novel, Blue Summer, joins esteemed work by this prolific short-story writer and novelist. Nichols’ previous book, Closer All The Time, was the 2016 Maine Book Award for Fiction winner. Two previously published novels, Slow Monkeys and Hull Creek, have also received critical acclaim, with Hull Creek finishing as a runner-up for the 2012 Maine Book Awards for Fiction.
In Blue Summer, music is the companion on one man’s journey for redemption. Cal Shaw, now a ward of the State of Maine serving time in a correctional facility, sits, writes and reflects on his life. It is a life of circumstance and individual challenge that will test his damaged spirit.
“So I thought I’d try to write this down. Chances are I’m no literary savant, but I promise my heart’s in the right place, and I have been a world-class bookworm for my whole pathetic life, so maybe that’ll help. Who knows? I guess we’ll see.”
It is a fitting introduction and one reminiscent of another book’s opening—that of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, as Holden Caulfield angrily opens up about “all that David Copperfield kind of crap.” In Cal Shaw, Nichols gives the reader a man humbled by experience who now looks back, accompanied by a melody — a melody that brought him back from the brink and is the same melody that will forever be his companion, bringing him memories of his youth, loss and love. It’s an exceptional beginning and an exceptional book.
Using a first-person perspective, Nichols lets Shaw tell us his story and provides us with not only a narrator but also a friend, a childhood buddy and a taxi-driving, recovering-alcoholic, cornet playing jazz musician to engage with in the process. Cal Shaw is all of that and much more, and Nichols expertly builds upon that throughout the story, adding layers to this man, some predictable and some very surprising.
In a Tampa, Florida, trailer park on the day he thinks may very well be his last, a jazz melody seeps into Shaw’s depressive state and awakens something within him, something he buried from his past. Preparing to end it all, Shaw is saved by that melody that mysteriously finds him. Music can do that, and Nichols knows that, having shared that passion with his father when he was growing up. “I grew up in a house full of music,” says Nichols. “My father was a savant who could play anything that didn’t have strings. He always had a band, where he alternated between piano and trumpet.”
The story, as Shaw reflects, is not linear, but moves back and forth from his childhood days growing up in Baxter, Maine, to his sudden departure and ultimately to his return. Life in Baxter was bucolic until the sudden death of his father. His mother, desperate to provide a life for her three children, marries a man who will undo this idyllic life with vicious abandon and will take more than one life along the way. Looking for comfort, Shaw turns to his Uncle Gus, who becomes his friend and musical mentor. Years later, receiving the news that his uncle has had a stroke, Cal now returns home where he knows the demons of his dreams lurk.
Music is powerful, and so is this story. For Shaw, this melody kept him alive and brought him home. He knew things would be different because of the music. He also knew that he and the music would work things out, together. “Now it’s about Julie and me, about our brother Alvin (yeah, Calvin and Alvin—it wasn’t my idea) and my parents and Becky and that POS Randy Pike and everybody else connected to where I grew up in Baxter, Maine; which means it’s also about tragedy that started during that bluest of summers.”
It’s what Nichols remembers, too, back in the day when he would play with his father. “Dad and I would duet at home on trumpet and trombone. My dad was the classic taciturn Yankee who never said anything emotional but could let it out when he played; I remember after my mother died listening to him play ‘their’ song in such a raw way that it was heartbreaking.” As Nichols explains it, music is more like communicating than remembering, “Sort of like my father communicating his sorrow — when Cal plays Blue Summer he’s talking to Julie.”
April 13, 2021
Jim Nichols writes about family, siblings, recovery, Maine, and music in 209 pages in "Blue Summer". Tragic losses from the past are intertwined with the melody that becomes the book title as Cal Shaw, now living in Tampa, FL, keeps it together, playing his cornet, and staying sober. The song demands to be written at the same time as he learns of the hospitalization of his Uncle Gus, back home in Maine.
Nichols’ writing style is casual, like Cal is telling a friend about his childhood, his family, and how he’s doing now. Being a Mainer myself, I appreciate the descriptions of the streets of Portland, Maine, and references to long closed restaurants and bars. I also appreciate that he doesn’t refer to “quaint” fishing villages or make the city and its surrounding towns feel too precious. Many who write about Maine sweeten the image of lobsters and lighthouses, stoic elders, or glowing small town greens into a picture of the state they long for rather than its reality. Given that this story takes place in the mid-60s and 30 years later in the mid-90s that’s not an easy task. In “Blue Summer”, Nichols writes about a family who happens to live in Maine, and while familiar, it is not just a story about a Maine family. The losses suffered are universal, as is the concept of “home” and the sadness and anxiety of returning to it.
"Blue Summer" was recommended by the Maine Public Radio "Maine Calling" host, Jennifer Rooks in her regular "Best & Overlooked Books" show. It is also featured in the Maine Public's "All Books Considered" book club and Jim Nichols will participate in a book club meeting on May 27, 2021 via Zoom at 7:00 pm.
Nichols’ writing style is casual, like Cal is telling a friend about his childhood, his family, and how he’s doing now. Being a Mainer myself, I appreciate the descriptions of the streets of Portland, Maine, and references to long closed restaurants and bars. I also appreciate that he doesn’t refer to “quaint” fishing villages or make the city and its surrounding towns feel too precious. Many who write about Maine sweeten the image of lobsters and lighthouses, stoic elders, or glowing small town greens into a picture of the state they long for rather than its reality. Given that this story takes place in the mid-60s and 30 years later in the mid-90s that’s not an easy task. In “Blue Summer”, Nichols writes about a family who happens to live in Maine, and while familiar, it is not just a story about a Maine family. The losses suffered are universal, as is the concept of “home” and the sadness and anxiety of returning to it.
"Blue Summer" was recommended by the Maine Public Radio "Maine Calling" host, Jennifer Rooks in her regular "Best & Overlooked Books" show. It is also featured in the Maine Public's "All Books Considered" book club and Jim Nichols will participate in a book club meeting on May 27, 2021 via Zoom at 7:00 pm.
October 3, 2020
A wonderful little story from Maine's master storyteller Jim Nichols. Family losses, estrangement and the therapeutic effects of music are all tied up in a perfect package for the reader's enjoyment.
March 19, 2021
Wow. This book is a stunner. A punch to the chest that leaves you breathless.
BLUE SUMMER is written by Maine author, Jim Nichols, and published by Island Port Press of Yarmouth, Maine. This title is one of the selections of MPR’s (Maine Public Radio) ’All Books Considered’ program, which helped to keep me sane during the pandemic, early 2021.
The book begins in the Bolduc Correctional Facility (inside Maine State Prison) in 1997. Calvin Shaw is ‘inside’ and writing down his life story.
His story may be familiar to many of us - the dark and shadowy goings-on in many dark, shadowy and toxic areas - rural & urban, small town, large town & big city, ‘good’ & nasty families (some hide the poison better than others). Maine is no exception.
The dates and places range from 1997 to 1995 to Cal’s 1960’s childhood years. From Maine to Tampa, Florida and back again to Maine.
Loss is the main subject heading here - loss of family; loss of loved ones; loss of childhood; loss of a sense of identity.
The writing is wonderful - realistic; to the point; honest; interspersed with musical melodies and riffs.
Certainly, a book ‘to be considered’. Thank you Maine Public Radio for alerting me to this title. *****
BLUE SUMMER is written by Maine author, Jim Nichols, and published by Island Port Press of Yarmouth, Maine. This title is one of the selections of MPR’s (Maine Public Radio) ’All Books Considered’ program, which helped to keep me sane during the pandemic, early 2021.
The book begins in the Bolduc Correctional Facility (inside Maine State Prison) in 1997. Calvin Shaw is ‘inside’ and writing down his life story.
His story may be familiar to many of us - the dark and shadowy goings-on in many dark, shadowy and toxic areas - rural & urban, small town, large town & big city, ‘good’ & nasty families (some hide the poison better than others). Maine is no exception.
The dates and places range from 1997 to 1995 to Cal’s 1960’s childhood years. From Maine to Tampa, Florida and back again to Maine.
Loss is the main subject heading here - loss of family; loss of loved ones; loss of childhood; loss of a sense of identity.
The writing is wonderful - realistic; to the point; honest; interspersed with musical melodies and riffs.
Certainly, a book ‘to be considered’. Thank you Maine Public Radio for alerting me to this title. *****
May 25, 2021
The author of this books helps the reader to feel like they are taking a journey along with the characters. His writing makes real life situations come alive. If you are from Maine or have visited our state, you will read about familiar places and landmarks.
Cal is a musician from a small town in Maine who tells about his experiences from childhood to his current incarceration. His upbringing is normal enough until his beloved dad dies and his mom remarries an abusive man. Parts of the story are difficult to read because of how the stepdad treats Cal, his brother, and sister. As Cal, a teenager, rebels, things get worse at home. He turns to his friends, drinking, partying and his music to escape. His dad's best friend, referred to as 'Uncle Gus' provides a welcoming, understanding respite for him by providing music lessons in his home. Cal leaves Maine for New York, then Tampa for more musical opportunities. Years later when he gets word from his brother that Uncle Gus is dying in the hospital, Cal returns back to his small hometown. The ending is very unexpected, but provides closure for Cal and explains why he is in jail.
Cal is a musician from a small town in Maine who tells about his experiences from childhood to his current incarceration. His upbringing is normal enough until his beloved dad dies and his mom remarries an abusive man. Parts of the story are difficult to read because of how the stepdad treats Cal, his brother, and sister. As Cal, a teenager, rebels, things get worse at home. He turns to his friends, drinking, partying and his music to escape. His dad's best friend, referred to as 'Uncle Gus' provides a welcoming, understanding respite for him by providing music lessons in his home. Cal leaves Maine for New York, then Tampa for more musical opportunities. Years later when he gets word from his brother that Uncle Gus is dying in the hospital, Cal returns back to his small hometown. The ending is very unexpected, but provides closure for Cal and explains why he is in jail.
May 25, 2021
What a stunning book. Sometimes coming-of-age/retrospective books about men are not my cup of tea, and I almost did not read this one because of that. But -- Maine Public Broadcasting's All Books Considered book club had chosen it for the May 2021 selection, so I read it, and I am SO glad I did (even though I've now had to schedule a family get-together for that very evening which has been a pandemic year in the making; so I'll view it later if my get-together is not over by 7). This book brought together some extremely complex emotions and characters in an accessible and creative way. Thank you, Jim Nichols.
July 16, 2021
Started this for PBS All Things Considered summer book read, but found it so dark and depressing that I hated picking it up so I put it aside. Too much death and hard times this year to try to cope with the problems of the book. I renewed it, and still avoided it. It’s due tomorrow so I skimmed through it. It’s gritty, hard truths, bad things happen to people who don’t deserve them, making their lives grim and desolate, always seeking a small kindness, hope.
It’s well written, just not the book I need in my life at present.
It’s well written, just not the book I need in my life at present.
April 7, 2021
Reading for the MPBN Book Club. Looking forward to reading this book. So far, I'm loving this book and I'm only 50 pages in. . .Loved this book. Another great recommendation for MPBN! The characters were just incredible. I don't want to give anything away. Cal goes through a lot from a child to an adult. I felt so bad for Cal and his sister Julie and even Alvin. I could have throttle the mother. How we all deal with grief and love is really different for everyone. And forgiving is hard too. I so glad I read this book and can't wait for the book club meeting to find out what others thought too.
July 2, 2021
Have you ever had a piece of music stuck in your mind but you can’t remember the next verse? Or a poem that you once knew by heart that now escapes you? Or a memory that’s missing a key piece no matter how you grasp for it? Blue Summer is just that… a musician’s memory of time past ~ a coming of age novel of haunting memories and love, cleverly written as a collection of tunes to be trumpeted… engaging poignant tale.
October 11, 2023
I enjoyed the author’s unique style of weaving a cornet (“not a trumpet”) into the rhythm of the story, making the point that even in tragedy, music can comfort and inspire. With sparse dialogue and description, the story of Cal Shaw reads like a confessional to a friend. Writing from prison, Cal tells his story of how he got there, and we like him from the first page until the final note of his song, “Blue Summer.”
August 2, 2022
It's a good story with an interesting plot, however it ended abruptly and left me wanting to know more. I dont understand the end conviction for Calvin based on the journal kept by Julie and I don't think that Becky would have been happily staying with him after the blatant murder. Just a weird ending to a book that could have been so much more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2021
Cal Shaw stole my heart in Jim Nichols’ new book, Blue Summer. This is a raw account of one man’s journey to discover himself while making peace with his past. Heartfelt and gritty with prose that captures you from page one, this book is a true winner.
July 9, 2021
Between mailings lies a tough life and a song underway to resurrect a life. Between Maine and Florida, Cal struggles to find meaning in his life. We sense in the end he just may do so between a childhood sweetheart and his music. A sweet book read by the Maine Public Broadcasting Book club.
August 15, 2023
Questo libro è STUPENDO E POTENTE.
Se avete voglia di una storia che sappia suscitare emozioni dense, che vi abbracci e vi trascini con lei, leggetelo!
Un racconto che profuma di America, di sentimenti profondi narrati al ritmo di blues.
Se avete voglia di una storia che sappia suscitare emozioni dense, che vi abbracci e vi trascini con lei, leggetelo!
Un racconto che profuma di America, di sentimenti profondi narrati al ritmo di blues.
January 16, 2024
Jim's skill as a First person writer provide a way to not only see the story through the main characters eyes, but also connect and feel the the people, places and things he shares with us. His stories are easy to read and flow with a completeness, without unneeded fluff or extra words.
October 8, 2024
un romanzo jazz, camminando con Cal e tutto il peso dell'abbandono che ha vissuto dalla perdita del papà e della sorella julie (bello il libro perche la biografia è onesta, cal super onesto nel raccontarsi)
Buon proposito: tenere il ritmo
Buon proposito: tenere il ritmo
November 11, 2020
Hard to get started on but otherwise excellent.
December 20, 2020
Intense. Emotional. Sad. A lovely read.
Thank you to Edelweiss, the publisher and the author for sending me this ARC.
Thank you to Edelweiss, the publisher and the author for sending me this ARC.
May 27, 2021
Nice portrait of Maine and young man’s coming of age. I found it slow to start and better as it went along.
July 15, 2021
Loved this book! Evokes childhood memories of growing up in Maine! Really like how the story unfolds.
July 23, 2021
Winner of the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Fiction. Picked it from the new arrivals at my local Maine library. Read it fast and liked it. I was ready for a good coming of age novel.
August 12, 2021
family story involving consequences of tragic death; interesting use of musical composition to move the story forward - somewhat predictable
October 4, 2021
Now I know why BLUE SUMMER won the 2021 Maine Literary Award for Fiction . . . from character to plot to voice to writing, it's excellent! Bravo!
January 2, 2022
Enjoyable read. Told in the manner of the narrator's attempt to write a book about his life. Honest and likeable man as were a few of the others. Enough mystery to keep me wondering.
July 18, 2022
Loved the description of returning to Maine over the bridge and changes to the Old Port from the 70s to 90s. Romantic, haunting, and lyrical.
July 9, 2023
This book was written for the readers who feel music in their soul. A great story about a fictional character named Cal and how his life path led him to the present.
March 20, 2024
Impulse pick at my last trip to the library. Local author. Local focus. Swift and sad read. Glad it caught my eye.
February 2, 2021
3.5 stars
January 8, 2022
Beautiful, rhythmic prose with rich characters and an interesting parallel timeline. As a Mainer I really loved the descriptions of places and people that feel like true home.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews