This weekend it is the Midsummer Festival in Old Lyme. So why not prepare for the splendid event by reading “Midsummer” by Marcelle Clements. It might not be quite as upbeat as the festival but, as our resplendent reviewer Jen Mann concludes, it is nevertheless, “a beautiful book.”
This is a beautiful book. Rather depressing, but still beautiful.
A group of friends rent a lovely old house in the Hudson River Valley for the summer. They are all a bit lost in their lives and hope that the joys of summer will revitalize them. We do too. They all seem to be nice people who could use a break. What we get are some magical descriptions of summer and some insight into the troubled mind.
Happiness should not be as elusive as it seems to be for them. Maybe they are drinking too much to find it. Cocktail hour seems a bit pervasive. Anyhow, in the midst of their dreams and introspection there are some jewels to be found from the writing prowess of Ms. Clements.
Kay starts to open up, but decides that magical thinking is not possible (I disagree), “Everything considered magical exasperated her. It was interesting, but only as a curiosity.”
There is happiness to be had but they don’t quite know how to approach, much less hold onto, it … “The beauty (was) a kind of pain”.
It took them , “years to get rid of excessive idealism.” What they unconsciously want is to get it back. “The visions of the Hudson at dusk, the rose garden, the crickets in the lawn, are all vehicles to find their way back, but they can’t.”
Each of the six main characters wants, needs, to feel love and joy again, but they have lost the ability to hold on to it. It is right in front of all of them. We see it, but they let it waft away and it is too sad.
If the reader can hold on to it. If the reader can see it and not let go the way the characters do, then the book is worth the read. Please, you think, never let it slip away completely because all you’d have left is an empty shell and it breaks your heart to see them live that way.