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Shadows in Summerland
"An extraordinary novel sure to enchant readers of Sarah Waters as well as those looking for a thrilling and transporting gothic tale." --Julia Fierro, author of The Gypsy Moth Summer
The author of The Man Who Noticed Everything, an award-winning collection of short stories, presents his debut work of full-length fiction, "a witty and disturbing horror novel . . . as if Henry James had written an issue of Tales from the Crypt" (Bennett Sims, author of A Questionable Shape).
Loosely based on the lives of spirit photographer William H. Mumler and his wife, Shadows in Summerland transports readers to 1859 Boston, where those who promise access to the otherworldly--mediums, spiritualists, and psychics--are celebrated. This embrace of illusion and intrigue provides the perfect hunting ground for con artists and charlatans--men like William Mumler.
When William teams up with Hannah, a shy young girl who sees and manifests the dead, they are welcomed into the drawing rooms of the city's elite. But the couple's newfound fame and fortune draw grifters and rogues into their circle, including someone who will bring the afterlife closer to them than they could ever imagine.
Spanning three decades, Shadows in Summerland "recalls an era no less gullible than the present one . . . Van Young's prose skillfully illuminates his gothic tale of greed, obsession, and murder" (Publishers Weekly).
"A fabulous and weird addition to the contemporary fantastic." --Laird Barron, author of Black Mountain
The author of The Man Who Noticed Everything, an award-winning collection of short stories, presents his debut work of full-length fiction, "a witty and disturbing horror novel . . . as if Henry James had written an issue of Tales from the Crypt" (Bennett Sims, author of A Questionable Shape).
Loosely based on the lives of spirit photographer William H. Mumler and his wife, Shadows in Summerland transports readers to 1859 Boston, where those who promise access to the otherworldly--mediums, spiritualists, and psychics--are celebrated. This embrace of illusion and intrigue provides the perfect hunting ground for con artists and charlatans--men like William Mumler.
When William teams up with Hannah, a shy young girl who sees and manifests the dead, they are welcomed into the drawing rooms of the city's elite. But the couple's newfound fame and fortune draw grifters and rogues into their circle, including someone who will bring the afterlife closer to them than they could ever imagine.
Spanning three decades, Shadows in Summerland "recalls an era no less gullible than the present one . . . Van Young's prose skillfully illuminates his gothic tale of greed, obsession, and murder" (Publishers Weekly).
"A fabulous and weird addition to the contemporary fantastic." --Laird Barron, author of Black Mountain
384 pages, Paperback
First published May 10, 2016
159 people are currently reading
1053 people want to read
About the author
Adrian Van Young
11 books45 followersAdrian Van Young has taught writing at Boston College, Boston University and Grub Street Writers, a creative writing non- profit. At various points in time, he has also taught writing and literature at the Calhoun School, 826 NYC and the Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School. In fall 2013, he will begin teaching creative writing and composition at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. He received his B.A. in English from Vassar College, and his MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where he formerly taught as well. In 2008, he was the recipient of a Henfield Foundation Prize and was nominated by Columbia's faculty for inclusion in the Best New American Voices 2010 Anthology.
The Man Who Noticed Everything, his first book of fiction, won Black Lawrence Press' 2011 St. Lawrence Book Award, and is available for purchase from Black Lawrence Press, an imprint of Dzanc Books, as of January 2013. He is currently in the midst of revising a historical novel based on the life of William H. Mumler, the father of spirit photography, and his clairvoyant wife, Hannah Mumler. His fiction and non- fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Lumina, Gigantic, Lacuna, Electric Literature, The American Reader, Black Warrior Review and The Believer. He lives in New Orleans, LA with his wife Darcy
The Man Who Noticed Everything, his first book of fiction, won Black Lawrence Press' 2011 St. Lawrence Book Award, and is available for purchase from Black Lawrence Press, an imprint of Dzanc Books, as of January 2013. He is currently in the midst of revising a historical novel based on the life of William H. Mumler, the father of spirit photography, and his clairvoyant wife, Hannah Mumler. His fiction and non- fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Lumina, Gigantic, Lacuna, Electric Literature, The American Reader, Black Warrior Review and The Believer. He lives in New Orleans, LA with his wife Darcy
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 6, 2020
Yeah, I rated my own book. What? WHAT?!
September 9, 2016
It's been a few years since I read Adrian Van Young's The Man Who Noticed Everything, but upon cracking Shadows in Summerland the thing I was instantly reminded of is that VY builds worlds that are, to put it lightly, densely-constructed as fuck.
My friend Ben Segal told me once that he "doesn't want to be bothered to read a book unless it feels like the author has labored -- labored over every fucking word." I'm not totally sure of what books Ben has and hasn't read, but if I were in a position to recommend some books to him right this mo', I'd reco some Adrian Van Young.
Shadows in Summerland is a novel that's what you'd call "voiced," meaning that there's a main character with a distinctive speaking style that you've got to learn the rhythm of before you can really get ahold on what you're reading. VY does voices well -- his short stories feel like they're written by a freaking ventriloquist chameleon, a ventriloquist chameleon with prodigious historical knowledge and an intuitive sense of character, story, and place (which would be a pretty special ventriloquist chameleon, I tell you now). SiS goes hard on voices -- there are actually four voices here, four characters with entirely different narrative styles telling you the same story from four very different angles. None of them are entirely unreliable, but they're all fighting for their version of the story to be the most present.
And you are there right in the middle, you special chameleon, you.
SiS is easy to mistake for an actual Victorian novel -- if you're a fan of The Alienist or suchlike, but you want the research and the noir and the density turned up to 11 (or whatever numbers they used in the 1860s -- tuppence? Yeah, if you want things turned up to Tuppence), this is your fuckin' book. Four narrators, all sort of swindlery and/or spooky and/or loathsome, even though to be honest none of them mean to be these things, they just sort of are, with one protagonist just one of the most genuinely awful people despite him doing absolutely nothing genuinely awful for almost the entire book, you just know, you just know he is so goddamn terrible in his heart...
Anyway.
SiS is a story about Spiritualists, charlatans, and ghost-conjurers in 1860s Boston. 'Summerland' is the fictive world of the dead they sell to their clients, and the Shadows may or may not be actual spirits who've unknowingly been conjured. And it's a crime story, sort of like how The Prestige is a crime story -- crime dancing around the edges and running like a vein through the middle, though most of the book is about other things than. "I sit here before you unjustly accused," William Mumler begins, the 'spirit photographer' who provides one of the book's four voices. "I sit here at your mercy, reader." (Neither of which, of course, is strictly true.)
And it's a cinematic sort of book, once it gets rolling. I saw shades of Jude Law's Harlen Maquire from Road to Perdition, leering through his camera, as we follow the strange doings of Mumler, a man we never really trust, even though he doesn't quite do much that's really wrong. There is just a wrongness in him, and in his ilk. Mumler is surrounded by people who are all driven by principles they may or may not truly believe in -- equality, God, family, art. The principles that they all insist they have may be the story's truest ghosts.
SiS is a story about unpleasant people made more unpleasant by living in an unpleasant time. It's got a smart understanding of how race and gender and class worked in the 19th century, from angles I'd never really considered before. It's the kind of book more than willing to give you a lesson in early American property law, within pages of a tangent about an ectoplasmic ghost-birth. It's the kind of historical fiction that makes you feel like you're walking through a tightly-cobbled town, untucking corners grown over with time.
It feels fucking labored, is what I'm saying. When Adrian Van Young writes a book, he writes goddamn hard. One thing I won't say is that it's friendly -- there is the distinct sensation, despite SiS having a short and plainly-spoken preface, that this book is sailing on a black and silent river, and you are on the shore. Whether or not you can get on board is entirely up to you, and this book is not even going to blink at the fact that it plans to drag you through the muck before it lets you on.
Another thing Ben Segal likes to say about stories is that it's important to know whether or not they stick the landing. "This one starts strong and the language keeps the pace," he'll say, "But you gotta make sure you stick the landing."
I was on the last paragraph of the last page and I was like, "Shit man, Adrian stuck the fucking landing."
The thing is that I've met Adrian Van Young before. He's always seemed like a surprisingly normal guy to me. He is not, as far as I can tell, a speeding boat threatening to drop you behind it on a black and silent river.
But this book. This book fucking is.
My friend Ben Segal told me once that he "doesn't want to be bothered to read a book unless it feels like the author has labored -- labored over every fucking word." I'm not totally sure of what books Ben has and hasn't read, but if I were in a position to recommend some books to him right this mo', I'd reco some Adrian Van Young.
Shadows in Summerland is a novel that's what you'd call "voiced," meaning that there's a main character with a distinctive speaking style that you've got to learn the rhythm of before you can really get ahold on what you're reading. VY does voices well -- his short stories feel like they're written by a freaking ventriloquist chameleon, a ventriloquist chameleon with prodigious historical knowledge and an intuitive sense of character, story, and place (which would be a pretty special ventriloquist chameleon, I tell you now). SiS goes hard on voices -- there are actually four voices here, four characters with entirely different narrative styles telling you the same story from four very different angles. None of them are entirely unreliable, but they're all fighting for their version of the story to be the most present.
And you are there right in the middle, you special chameleon, you.
SiS is easy to mistake for an actual Victorian novel -- if you're a fan of The Alienist or suchlike, but you want the research and the noir and the density turned up to 11 (or whatever numbers they used in the 1860s -- tuppence? Yeah, if you want things turned up to Tuppence), this is your fuckin' book. Four narrators, all sort of swindlery and/or spooky and/or loathsome, even though to be honest none of them mean to be these things, they just sort of are, with one protagonist just one of the most genuinely awful people despite him doing absolutely nothing genuinely awful for almost the entire book, you just know, you just know he is so goddamn terrible in his heart...
Anyway.
SiS is a story about Spiritualists, charlatans, and ghost-conjurers in 1860s Boston. 'Summerland' is the fictive world of the dead they sell to their clients, and the Shadows may or may not be actual spirits who've unknowingly been conjured. And it's a crime story, sort of like how The Prestige is a crime story -- crime dancing around the edges and running like a vein through the middle, though most of the book is about other things than. "I sit here before you unjustly accused," William Mumler begins, the 'spirit photographer' who provides one of the book's four voices. "I sit here at your mercy, reader." (Neither of which, of course, is strictly true.)
And it's a cinematic sort of book, once it gets rolling. I saw shades of Jude Law's Harlen Maquire from Road to Perdition, leering through his camera, as we follow the strange doings of Mumler, a man we never really trust, even though he doesn't quite do much that's really wrong. There is just a wrongness in him, and in his ilk. Mumler is surrounded by people who are all driven by principles they may or may not truly believe in -- equality, God, family, art. The principles that they all insist they have may be the story's truest ghosts.
SiS is a story about unpleasant people made more unpleasant by living in an unpleasant time. It's got a smart understanding of how race and gender and class worked in the 19th century, from angles I'd never really considered before. It's the kind of book more than willing to give you a lesson in early American property law, within pages of a tangent about an ectoplasmic ghost-birth. It's the kind of historical fiction that makes you feel like you're walking through a tightly-cobbled town, untucking corners grown over with time.
It feels fucking labored, is what I'm saying. When Adrian Van Young writes a book, he writes goddamn hard. One thing I won't say is that it's friendly -- there is the distinct sensation, despite SiS having a short and plainly-spoken preface, that this book is sailing on a black and silent river, and you are on the shore. Whether or not you can get on board is entirely up to you, and this book is not even going to blink at the fact that it plans to drag you through the muck before it lets you on.
Another thing Ben Segal likes to say about stories is that it's important to know whether or not they stick the landing. "This one starts strong and the language keeps the pace," he'll say, "But you gotta make sure you stick the landing."
I was on the last paragraph of the last page and I was like, "Shit man, Adrian stuck the fucking landing."
The thing is that I've met Adrian Van Young before. He's always seemed like a surprisingly normal guy to me. He is not, as far as I can tell, a speeding boat threatening to drop you behind it on a black and silent river.
But this book. This book fucking is.
October 28, 2020
This is the kind of book that you happen on only a few times in your life. It's ostensibly historical fiction, about the 1800's spiritualists movement (yeah, ghosts and seances and all that jazz) with wonderfully developed characters and situations---but that's not what all the fuss is about. The WAY this book is written kept me reading chapter after chapter as the author, with some wild gothic and
Victorian language, propelled me right into the era, the dialogue and narrative slowly becoming as much a part of my rapt experience as the plot and character arcs themselves. This is a writer's writer, or a VERY discerning reader's writer. The thing that struck me the deepest, as a writer myself, is that Van Young trusts his reader to 'read between the lines." He doesn't spell it out for lazy escapists. You 'discern' what happens, just like life itself. There's no little chorus in life, standing on your shoulder, explaining what's going on. What a refreshing and fantastic choice that is! Nuance. Subtlety. Mystery. It's literature. it's not a beach book. It's wonderful!!
Victorian language, propelled me right into the era, the dialogue and narrative slowly becoming as much a part of my rapt experience as the plot and character arcs themselves. This is a writer's writer, or a VERY discerning reader's writer. The thing that struck me the deepest, as a writer myself, is that Van Young trusts his reader to 'read between the lines." He doesn't spell it out for lazy escapists. You 'discern' what happens, just like life itself. There's no little chorus in life, standing on your shoulder, explaining what's going on. What a refreshing and fantastic choice that is! Nuance. Subtlety. Mystery. It's literature. it's not a beach book. It's wonderful!!
May 23, 2016
Fantastic novel. Read my review over at Electric Literature.
March 17, 2017
This book is a phenomenal piece of work. Sprawling, cinematic, and fascinating. I love Adrian's gift for language so much - engulfingly Victorian, often devastating prose, but I think it's his characters that got under my skin the most. Most are deeply flawed, many are wronged, but they were all somehow endeared to me and I love that sort of thing.
It's a ghost story and it's a period piece, yeah, and it's also just a gorgeous study of a bunch of people trying to figure shit out. I felt like it transcended your ushe ghost story in so many ways - I was never terribly scared or grossed out, but the book gave me legit chills many times. Stunning.
Important aside: This was the first book I read on a new kindle, and I left myself notes as I read, which means I've trained the kindle's suggested text to be stuff like: "<3," "RAD," "LOVE," and "AMAZING" in all caps. Because that's what I kept writing.
You should probably read this.
It's a ghost story and it's a period piece, yeah, and it's also just a gorgeous study of a bunch of people trying to figure shit out. I felt like it transcended your ushe ghost story in so many ways - I was never terribly scared or grossed out, but the book gave me legit chills many times. Stunning.
Important aside: This was the first book I read on a new kindle, and I left myself notes as I read, which means I've trained the kindle's suggested text to be stuff like: "<3," "RAD," "LOVE," and "AMAZING" in all caps. Because that's what I kept writing.
You should probably read this.
September 14, 2016
Adrian Van Young creates a vivid and complex narrative in this new gothic tale, Shadows in Summerland, with an introduction that sets the tone for the rest of the novel. Three people stand accused of murder and fraud who are adamant about their innocence.
Shadows in Summerland gives insight into 19th century spiritualism while also providing readers with a mysterious thriller that will keep them on their toes. Through the use of imagery, Van Young maintains a chilling atmosphere throughout his novel while remaining poetic in his language.
A highlight for me came from sentences whose prose read like poetry: “It was replaced by something strange and yet something I felt I knew, a sort of half-remembered fear whose ghost flitted across her eyes like a swimmer in moonlight traversing a pond but not without ripples disturbing the dark, fanning to the farther shores.”
Review by Dennise Garcia
Shadows in Summerland gives insight into 19th century spiritualism while also providing readers with a mysterious thriller that will keep them on their toes. Through the use of imagery, Van Young maintains a chilling atmosphere throughout his novel while remaining poetic in his language.
A highlight for me came from sentences whose prose read like poetry: “It was replaced by something strange and yet something I felt I knew, a sort of half-remembered fear whose ghost flitted across her eyes like a swimmer in moonlight traversing a pond but not without ripples disturbing the dark, fanning to the farther shores.”
Review by Dennise Garcia
August 27, 2017
I really wanted to love this book. From the subject matter to the characters, everything is in van Young's novel to make it a stellar outing, but despite what seems to be a great premise and a well-crafted cast, something's missing in SHADOWS IN SUMMERLAND.
Van Young does do a great job of capturing the era through both dialogue and prose, but that may be a drawback, too. The book reads like a heavy tome, slogging through some passages and requiring some paragraphs to be reread more than once for their entire meaning to be grasped.
The back and forth between characters can also be somewhat jarring at times, drawing the reader out of the story, rather than immersing themselves in the tale.
Van Young does do a great job of capturing the era through both dialogue and prose, but that may be a drawback, too. The book reads like a heavy tome, slogging through some passages and requiring some paragraphs to be reread more than once for their entire meaning to be grasped.
The back and forth between characters can also be somewhat jarring at times, drawing the reader out of the story, rather than immersing themselves in the tale.
December 30, 2023
For fans of books like ‘the haunting of hill house’ and ‘the picture of Dorian gray’ this book is spellbinding and sinister!
Set in the Victorian era, written by Van Young, this is possibly one of the best gothic literatures I’ve ever read.
I believe the storyline justly unfolded.
A fantastic book to finish the year off with and to finish my reading challenge of 40 books for 2023.
Set in the Victorian era, written by Van Young, this is possibly one of the best gothic literatures I’ve ever read.
I believe the storyline justly unfolded.
A fantastic book to finish the year off with and to finish my reading challenge of 40 books for 2023.
January 3, 2021
I’m not sure why this book didn’t grab me. I liked the setting, the characters were interesting, and the point-of-view switching enhanced the story. It just didn’t quite engage me for whatever reason!
dnf
June 19, 2024This is brutal. It already feels slow and I don’t care for the writing. I’m only 28 pages in but feel like I’ve been reading for hours.
I might give this another shot when I’m hopefully more in the mood.
I might give this another shot when I’m hopefully more in the mood.
December 14, 2020
DNF 10%. BORING
July 9, 2021
Good story but hard to follow at times
May 23, 2022
I'm DNF this book. I was bored.
June 2, 2016
Stylistically, not my thing.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews