Summertime - Hardcover

McCoy, Maureen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671621874 ISBN 13: 9780671621872

Publisher: Poseidon Pr, 1987

Synopsis

When Jessamine Morrow, eighty-five, elopes with a man from her retirement home, she revitalizes the spirits of the Morrow women who have agonized through the long illness and death of James Morrow, cherished father, husband, and son

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

At age 85, lovely, elegant and wise in the ways of the heart, Jessamine Morrow suddenly runs off with Hazen Batten, a fellow resident of Hillcrest Retirement Home in Des Moines, Iowa. Jessamine's action shocks her daughter-in-law Alice and granddaughter Carla, both of whom, like Jessamine, are recovering from the recent death of James Morrow, who was Jessamine's son, Alice's husband and Carla's father. Frail, chain-smoking Alice works for a craft-and-hobby mail-order business, hoarding free samples along with her husband's old medicines in her home in a declining neighborhood. The sturdier Carla lives in the woods with her back-to-the-land husband in a house without plumbing or electricity. Surprised to find herself pregnant, Carla comes to stay with Alice for a while. As Jessamine adapts to life with Hazen, Alice and Carla plumb the depth of their grief and then begin, as Jessamine has, to relish their lives again. Quirky, believable and fully realized, the three women live through the season of the titlethrough car accidents, muggings and betrayalsto arrive at the beginning of autumn, their sense of humor intact and their hearts full of hope. McCoy wrote Walking After Midnight.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

When 85-year old Jessamine marries her retirement home sweetheart we expect a tender comedy, but wonder why her chain-smoking daughter-in-law, Alice, and her granddaughter, Carla, are so unnerved. Slowly and gently, McCoy draws the reader into the numbing trauma these women suffered while living with and watching their son/husband/father, a World War II veteran, deteriorate both mentally and physically. He took so long to die that his women existed in suspended time, coping with the present, afraid to think about any future. Years later, with Jessamine's extraordinary act . . . for five years I tried simply sitting and I prefer the effort it takes to live"Alice and Carla find the courage from the indomitable old lady's example to reach out for fulfillment. Recommended as a compassionate story, beautifully written. Marion Hanscom, SUNY at Binghamton Lib.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Poseidon Pr
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0671621874
• ISBN 13: 9780671621872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1