Music of Summer, The

After being spurned by her best friend and a group of light-skinned, upper-middle-class girls vacationing on Cape Cod, Sarah develops a loving friendship with the Caribbean-born Madame Arnaud and her son Jean Pierre.

Grade 9-12--S arah, 18, is an African-American Julliard student. She lives in modest circumstances in the city with her hard-working mother, who is determined that her daughter will have a career in music. Socially naive, Sarah is baffled by the coolness of Cathy, a former neighbor and schoolmate, and by the grudge that her mother bears against the girl's mother. Yearning for a release from her structured life, Sarah accepts an invitation from Cathy's mother to the family's Cape Cod home. There she is ostracized and mocked by Cathy's friends, a group of lighter-skinned, wealthy private-school students. Jean Pierre, a native of Martinique and a mature man of 30, becomes Sarah's lover and shares with her his plans for living and working in Africa. She is then forced to make hard decisions about her identity, her future, and her obligations to others. Sarah is a strong, admirable, and likable person. The other characters are well drawn and believable. Guy's portrait of African -American society is one of diversity and vitality. Differences of appearance, economic status, political orientation, as well as community biases are honestly presented. An engrossing and uplifting title for readers of all backgrounds. --Libby K. White, Schenectady County Public Library, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The themes in Guy's newest novel are ambitious and diverse, ranging from the difficulty of choosing between mutually exclusive dreams (exemplified by 18-year-old Sarah's need to choose between marrying an Africa-bound development worker bound or remaining in New York City to pursue her musical talent) to the prejudice, even hostility, that light-skinned African Americans may direct toward those with darker skin, dramatized by Sarah's ostracism by a group of peers she summers with on Cape Cod. But Guy's command of these themes falters badly. The reasons Sarah chooses to accompany her cruel friend Cathy and Cathy's friends to the Cape are never made credible, nor is the fact that she remains despite their overt hostility. Sarah's relationship with handsome Jean Pierre is a fairy-tale romance--otherworldly, unrealistic and ultimately unbelievable. And her decision, finally, not to follow her lover to Africa is unsatisfying, for the girl seems merely to be acquiescing to her family's hopes, not following her own desires-- "My uncle wants me to be a star," she explains to the disappointed Jean Pierre. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The politics of skin color in the black community: Brilliant Sarah, one year into Juilliard, is trying to mend her long friendship with blue-eyed Cathy; but Cathy, now involved with a group of lighter-skinned friends and jealous of Sarah's talents, adamantly rejects her. Still, when Cathy's mother, Clarice, invites Sarah to Cape Cod for a summer vacation, Sarah accepts despite her own mother's anger at Clarice's and Cathy's betrayal of their relationship. Cathy's grandmother--who inherited her elegant Cape Cod home from Quaker friends--takes Sarah under her wing, but Cathy and her friends continue, viciously, to ostracize her. Meanwhile, charismatic Martinican Madame Armand and her handsome son Jean Pierre, whose business usually keeps him in Africa, join the house party. When Cathy's friends literally try to drown Sarah, Jean Pierre is just in time to rescue her; their growing attraction is explicitly consummated, but Sarah elects Juilliard rather than marriage. A flawed--and very uneven--book, beginning with amateurishly lengthy explanations and burdened with stilted writing; Cathy's jealousy is so overdrawn that Sarah's continuing affection for her is not credible--nor is Sarah's apparent lack of friends at Juilliard. Even the potential message about self-realization is subverted: Sarah's final decision is based on family loyalty, not love for her music. Still, Sarah herself is appealing and her antagonists' rage chillingly believable, while the overriding motif--that a caste system based on skin is tragically destructive--is vital and compelling. Significantly, Sarah is reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970), a more trenchant exploration of the same theme. (Fiction. YA) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.