Summer People - Hardcover

Piercy, Marge

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671678566 ISBN 13: 9780671678562

Publisher: Summit Books, 1989

Synopsis

Centers on the conflict between Cape Cod locals Dinah, Willie, and Willie's wife Susan and the summer vacationers who seasonally invade their small town

About this title

From the Inside Flap

e, and Susan have long outlived the scandal associated with their ten-year-old menage-a-trois. Dinah, an avante-garde compler, treasures her independence. Yet it takes Willie's kindness and Susan's fire to sustain her. Willie is a left-wing sculptor in a right-wing age. And Susan, his wife, is a fabric designer who craves glamour, wealth, and the attentions of the summer people who visit Cape Cod every year. Then one summer, the balance shifts. Passions are tested, honesty forsaken, and the trio must face the changes brought by their beautiful visitors . . .

From Publishers Weekly

Related in an absorbingly leisurely fashion, Piercy's latest (after Gone to Soldiers ) is an old-fashioned novel in the sense that it doesn't tell a flashy story but delves into character and relationships, slowly weaving a richly nuanced tale. For over a decade, Willie Dewitt, a sculptor and sometime carpenter, and his wife Susan, an emotionally fragile fabric designer, have maintained a harmonious marriage while each has been the lover of Dinah, a flutist and avant-garde composer. This unusual menage a trois occupies adjoining houses overlooking a pond on Cape Cod, sharing a compound with manipulative wheeler-dealer Tyrone Burdock and, this summer, a Boston doctor and his seductive wife. The plot segues back and forth among the major characters--who include Tyrone's suddenly widowed daughter, the Dewitt's prodigal son, newly separated from his wife, and a celebrated flutist who woos Dinah. A rumination on the nature of sexual love and friendship, and of artistic creativity and commitment, the narrative is fleshed out with details that create versimilitude to daily life. Susan's envy of the summer people erodes her hitherto stable relationships and leads to a slowly gathering but inevitable tragedy. Piercy eschews sensationalism in portraying her unorthodox trio; her characterizations are solid and believable. Some readers may find the story's pace too deliberate, but those who like to ponder the ways in which character influences fate will welcome this solidly satisfying novel.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Summit Books
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0671678566
• ISBN 13: 9780671678562
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 380