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Summer People
Dinah, Willie, and Susan have long outlived the scandal associated with their ten-year-old menage-a-trois. Dinah, an avante-garde composer, 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 . . .
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
96 people are currently reading
423 people want to read
About the author
Marge Piercy
108 books934 followersMarge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
March 14, 2015
This is a story of relationships. And of people who are stumbling along like many of us do, wanting everything for ourselves without always thinking about the needs or desires of the person closest to us, sometimes without even knowing that person the way we think we do.
Susan is a fabric designer who is married to Willie, a sculptor. They have two adult children, Jimmy and Siobhan, who calls herself Johnny. Susan and Willie have a mutual love in Dinah, a composer who lives next door in a house she and her husband Mark lived in while he died of cancer. The story begins ten years after that time, ten years into a menage-a-trois that scandalized their small community at its early stages, but has by now become accepted.
But is the relationship as strong and stable as a triangle is touted to be? What happens one summer when the rich people who own the big houses across the pond show up for their vacations? Will the triangle maintain its strength or will it collapse?
Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, a style I usually find annoying but in this case it helps, because we see how each character experiences the same event differently, and we get to know each person better every time they are the focus of a chapter. We meet the summer people, Tyrone and his daughter Laurie in one house across the pond, Alec and his wife Candida in the other.
The drama develops as everyone interacts one summer at a time when each side of the triangle seems to be at a point in life where they are questioning what they actually want...and yet, like so many of us, they spend time misinterpreting actions and words, each person deciding his or her own Why of this or that event without actually talking to anyone else. This made them all seem self-centered, and showed that even after ten
years together they did not really know each other at all.
The characters seemed quite real: Susan was moody and yearned for a life of glamour and ease like the summer people had. She was the worst for creating scenarios that did not fit reality. Willie was a virile man, but he had a flaccid personality, preferring to patiently wait out any upsetting episodes. He annoyed me the most; I wanted to shake him more than once. Dinah was my favorite, throughout the book she was the most mature, even with her faults. She was also for me the most interesting, since I got a glimpse into what goes on in the mind of a composer while she creates her music.
Susan is a fabric designer who is married to Willie, a sculptor. They have two adult children, Jimmy and Siobhan, who calls herself Johnny. Susan and Willie have a mutual love in Dinah, a composer who lives next door in a house she and her husband Mark lived in while he died of cancer. The story begins ten years after that time, ten years into a menage-a-trois that scandalized their small community at its early stages, but has by now become accepted.
But is the relationship as strong and stable as a triangle is touted to be? What happens one summer when the rich people who own the big houses across the pond show up for their vacations? Will the triangle maintain its strength or will it collapse?
Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, a style I usually find annoying but in this case it helps, because we see how each character experiences the same event differently, and we get to know each person better every time they are the focus of a chapter. We meet the summer people, Tyrone and his daughter Laurie in one house across the pond, Alec and his wife Candida in the other.
The drama develops as everyone interacts one summer at a time when each side of the triangle seems to be at a point in life where they are questioning what they actually want...and yet, like so many of us, they spend time misinterpreting actions and words, each person deciding his or her own Why of this or that event without actually talking to anyone else. This made them all seem self-centered, and showed that even after ten
years together they did not really know each other at all.
The characters seemed quite real: Susan was moody and yearned for a life of glamour and ease like the summer people had. She was the worst for creating scenarios that did not fit reality. Willie was a virile man, but he had a flaccid personality, preferring to patiently wait out any upsetting episodes. He annoyed me the most; I wanted to shake him more than once. Dinah was my favorite, throughout the book she was the most mature, even with her faults. She was also for me the most interesting, since I got a glimpse into what goes on in the mind of a composer while she creates her music.
September 14, 2018
The first thing I noticed about this book was how much it engrossed me in its story from the first chapter, probably even the first page. Piercy brings the idyllic existence of Willie, Susan and Dinah on Cape Cod to life immediately, not only through vivid descriptions of the landscape but also by plunging you straight into the heart of their unique "menage a trois" relationship.
I've been a fan of Piercy since Woman on the Edge of Time completely blew me away when I was 18 (and then again in my mid-twenties). Following that with He, She & It, another novel which stands out for its depth and originality, I'm now always on the look out for Piercy in my regular prowling of charity shop bookshelves.
I enjoyed reading Summer People, I enjoyed it a great deal. I think I've taken more baths in the last fortnight than the rest of the year combined, purely to lie for an hour and soak up this book. I found it different to the previous two though, mostly in the characterisation. It's a testament to her writing how much I loved reading a story told from the perspectives of such inherently selfish people! I think the POV chapters helped a great deal there - if it had been entirely from Susan's viewpoint I doubt I'd have liked it. In some ways it was like watching a soap opera - sitting back and watching smugly as the characters' poor decisions come back to bite them in the arse.
All in all, a good, immersive and well constructed novel. Piercy for the win.
I've been a fan of Piercy since Woman on the Edge of Time completely blew me away when I was 18 (and then again in my mid-twenties). Following that with He, She & It, another novel which stands out for its depth and originality, I'm now always on the look out for Piercy in my regular prowling of charity shop bookshelves.
I enjoyed reading Summer People, I enjoyed it a great deal. I think I've taken more baths in the last fortnight than the rest of the year combined, purely to lie for an hour and soak up this book. I found it different to the previous two though, mostly in the characterisation. It's a testament to her writing how much I loved reading a story told from the perspectives of such inherently selfish people! I think the POV chapters helped a great deal there - if it had been entirely from Susan's viewpoint I doubt I'd have liked it. In some ways it was like watching a soap opera - sitting back and watching smugly as the characters' poor decisions come back to bite them in the arse.
All in all, a good, immersive and well constructed novel. Piercy for the win.
November 30, 2016
Marge Piercy is undoubtedly a very talented and interesting writer, as evidenced by Woman on the Edge of Time, City of Darkness, City of Light, and The High Cost of Living. ‘Summer People’ was less to my taste, however. I was intrigued by the central unconventional romantic relationship between three, then disappointed by somewhat soap operatic events that unfolded. To be fair, Piercy does sustain the five-way split in perspective impressively well throughout. The writing is good and the characters convincing. The problem was, I viscerally disliked several of those narrating and found their goings-on annoying quite a lot of the time.
More detailed discussion necessitates spoilers.
Thus Piercy writes with subtlety, but there isn’t a lot of it in the plot. ‘Summer People’ has some moments of great insight, for example about septic tanks as small talk, and the characters, including the awful Tyrone and his spoiled daughter, certainly come to life. Nonetheless, I was not especially engaged and wished the characters would resolve their drama.
More detailed discussion necessitates spoilers.
Thus Piercy writes with subtlety, but there isn’t a lot of it in the plot. ‘Summer People’ has some moments of great insight, for example about septic tanks as small talk, and the characters, including the awful Tyrone and his spoiled daughter, certainly come to life. Nonetheless, I was not especially engaged and wished the characters would resolve their drama.
January 21, 2013
I've read this book several times before and thing that always strikes me is the incredibly well-developed characters. They seem so real to me and I can easily relate them to people I know or something I see in myself. A great book!
February 26, 2012
Love Marge Piercy. A long standing menage a' trois is busted up by drama and tragedy. Our heroine shifts into a more traditional relationship and there is a happy ending. Still, this took balls to write and I was pleased with the results.
February 23, 2020
I found this book hard to leave alone. It's another re-read, and I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it more this time round.
It's given me an urge to listen to more classical music.
It's given me an urge to listen to more classical music.
October 17, 2007
I am a fan of Marge Piercy--her poetry and her present-day novels. I read Gone to Soldiers, her WWII opus, and liked it, but didn't care for City of Darkness, City of Light, which is about the French Revolution.
Having said that, Summer People is one of my favorites of hers. As a former resident of Massachusetts and visitor to the Cape, where this book is set, I thoroughly enjoy her description of place. The characters, as well, particularly the women, Dinah and Susan, are, I feel, developed thoroughly.
Having said that, Summer People is one of my favorites of hers. As a former resident of Massachusetts and visitor to the Cape, where this book is set, I thoroughly enjoy her description of place. The characters, as well, particularly the women, Dinah and Susan, are, I feel, developed thoroughly.
January 5, 2010
I thought this book was fabulous. I was thoroughly drawn in by all the characters, their struggles with one another, their intimate experiences. Marge Piercy's writing in this book is fluid and the every character, even the minor ones, come alive. As if that weren't enough, the story is compelling - building a picture of a three-way intimate relationship that seems so solid at the beginning, falls apart when one of them dies and yet people pick up the pieces.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2015
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Piercy is a fabulous writer who takes the reader through the messy and beautiful relationships of a handful of characters connected by the small Cape Cod town in which they live.
I especially appreciated the way that chapters were told from the point of view of different characters.
I don't feel like I am doing this book justice, but trust me, this book is excellent and well worth reading.
I especially appreciated the way that chapters were told from the point of view of different characters.
I don't feel like I am doing this book justice, but trust me, this book is excellent and well worth reading.
November 5, 2022
3.515 Piercy is one of my favourite authors. This was different from her other novels, quieter and more character focused. I found it to be ambling and nostalgic and witty. It's the story of a middle class love triangle at Cape Cod in the early gos, not much happens till the end.
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August 23, 2008Very interesting book about a long-term threesome couple.
June 19, 2019
I have been reading Marge Piercy's books since I was in college. She is a complicated author. She started out with science fiction, and then branched into plain fiction with a leftist political bent, and unusual sexual groupings. Summer People is about a threesome, Willie, a sculptor and carpenter, Dinah, a composer, and Susan, a fabric designer. They live as a family on Cape Code. for ten years, they have lived together in two houses on a pond, seen Susan and Willie's children through adolescence and into adulthood, and been happy.
Also living on the pond part time is Tyrone, a multi-millionaire who flies around the world making deals and more money. Susan is dazzled by Tyrone's possessions, his drive, his apartment in new York, even his daughter Laurie, who confided in Susan when she was a teenager. Willie and Dinah see Tyrone as irrelevant to their lives. He is one of the "summer people," the wealthy types who drive up real estate prices, build huge, ugly houses and eventually go home in the fall, leaving the year round residents of the Cape to get on with their lives.
As Tyrone becomes more attractive in \Susan's eyes, she tries to insinuate herself with him by doing "favors." Dinah and Willie see the favors as unpaid labor. One of the favors almost leads to Susan's death, as she agrees to check on Tyrone's house during a blizzard. A tree falls on her truck. Luckily, Dinah and Willie become worried, and go to find her. They cut away the tree and pry Susan out of the truck.
Dinah, particularly, is enraged by her decision to drive out in a howling snowstorm at the whim of a person who is not really a friend, but a casual acquaintance. Dinah rages at Susan, and Susan throws her out of the family. How the three of them and subsidiary characters such as Tyrones insecure daughter Laurie and Susan and Willie's son, Jimmy, and Itzak Raab, an internationally famous flautist, for whom Dinah has written a piece of music, deal with the breakup of the family is the subject of Summer People.
Also living on the pond part time is Tyrone, a multi-millionaire who flies around the world making deals and more money. Susan is dazzled by Tyrone's possessions, his drive, his apartment in new York, even his daughter Laurie, who confided in Susan when she was a teenager. Willie and Dinah see Tyrone as irrelevant to their lives. He is one of the "summer people," the wealthy types who drive up real estate prices, build huge, ugly houses and eventually go home in the fall, leaving the year round residents of the Cape to get on with their lives.
As Tyrone becomes more attractive in \Susan's eyes, she tries to insinuate herself with him by doing "favors." Dinah and Willie see the favors as unpaid labor. One of the favors almost leads to Susan's death, as she agrees to check on Tyrone's house during a blizzard. A tree falls on her truck. Luckily, Dinah and Willie become worried, and go to find her. They cut away the tree and pry Susan out of the truck.
Dinah, particularly, is enraged by her decision to drive out in a howling snowstorm at the whim of a person who is not really a friend, but a casual acquaintance. Dinah rages at Susan, and Susan throws her out of the family. How the three of them and subsidiary characters such as Tyrones insecure daughter Laurie and Susan and Willie's son, Jimmy, and Itzak Raab, an internationally famous flautist, for whom Dinah has written a piece of music, deal with the breakup of the family is the subject of Summer People.
July 29, 2024
A character-driven exploration of a year in the life of the triumvirate of Susan, Willie and Dinah, who live in a co-operative three-person marriage year-round in a holiday place on a pond in Cape Cod (northeast of New York). Told in the voices of these three characters, as well as summer visitor Laurie, so we can really get inside the heads of each one. This is quite a hard book to categorise. It is almost a slice-of-life drama. So you get all of the warts-and-all things that happen in a year clustering around the core plot thread. In the end, however, I went for literary fiction, simply because the plot plays second fiddle to the exploration of the characters and their relationships. The main element in the book is the character development of Susan, who gradually becomes more and more obsessed with the lifestyles of the summer visitors to their pond. There is a clever slow reveal of how seemingly minor incidents can lead to significant consequences. A second (related) plot thread is Dinah's journey as a composer and how her isolated lifestyle brushes up against the sophisticated world of classical music.
I did enjoy it, particularly the introspection from the characters. If you like reading about people's thought processes and decision-making dilemmas you will love it. My main criticism though, is that it is overlong. I am certain that the same effect could have been achieved with a third fewer words. There are also some irritating dead-ends to the plot - for example, I am sure that the entire character and plot involving Laurie was unnecessary to the book, and there are irritating hints throughout that come to nothing, like the presence of a skeleton key, several romances or assignations that serve no purpose, and the spying neighbour. However, on the whole, it's quite an unusual book and a good lesson in how to build tension.
I did enjoy it, particularly the introspection from the characters. If you like reading about people's thought processes and decision-making dilemmas you will love it. My main criticism though, is that it is overlong. I am certain that the same effect could have been achieved with a third fewer words. There are also some irritating dead-ends to the plot - for example, I am sure that the entire character and plot involving Laurie was unnecessary to the book, and there are irritating hints throughout that come to nothing, like the presence of a skeleton key, several romances or assignations that serve no purpose, and the spying neighbour. However, on the whole, it's quite an unusual book and a good lesson in how to build tension.
February 21, 2021
Much of this novel was enjoyable, especially exploring the inner life of artists and musicians, the relationship between the year round people of a town on Cape Cod and the summer people, and the complexities of gender relationships. It is told from multiple points of view, which leads me to my one major problem with the work as a whole. Usually seeing things through someone’s point of view creates some sympathy for that person (which is why, in my opinion, Hemingway told “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” from every point of view, even the lion’s, except for Mrs. Macomber). But of the three central characters in this novel, two were sympathetic if at times misguided (aren’t we all?), and one made me feel Piercy was getting back at someone in her life. I found myself getting very irritated with the other two who insisted on seeing her as special without her attraction, other than physical, being shown either in her actions or in her thoughts which were the pinnacle of self-delusion as well as self-centeredness. Also, we could have lost fifty pages without losing much, just through careful editing. But I enjoyed much of it and feel it does deserve the four stars.
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December 11, 2022Ah, a classic Marge Piercy. Women in complicated relationships. Every novel Marge Piercy has written explores a world question, and this one is about art and music. It's also about polyamory, back when that word wasn't very mainstream (in fact they call it a menage a trois), but that becomes less important than the question of how to be an artist. It's set in a stunningly beautiful year-round, rural Cape Cod, with the complication that the economy depends on the "summer people". It's also about those people that you can love, at least for a while, even though they don't have the values that are important to you. It's about the vulgarity of being rich enough to buy good art, thinking you are buying your way into culture, but not accompanying your money with humility about the artists who are not rich, and about the art itself -- what is now called commodification. It's about selling out happiness for security and allowing your father to run your life. A classic Marge Piercy, about many, many things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 18, 2023
A bunch of self absorbed artists in a small Cape Cod town, not one of the busy tourist locations, were unappealing and caused me to quit reading the book BUT then the menage a trois was shattered and the story really got interesting. The title identifies the part time residents of this small community whose houses, together with several full time citizens of the community, border on a large pond. How the lives of the locals are enhanced, fractured, complimented or destroyed by these "summer people" forms a well written and interesting read. The author provides insight on the creative process of various artists in their chosen media.
Read "Gone to Soldiers" by this author years ago and found it unforgettable. Still like that book better but this is one I'd love to get to discuss in a group.
Read "Gone to Soldiers" by this author years ago and found it unforgettable. Still like that book better but this is one I'd love to get to discuss in a group.
December 3, 2018
I have yet to read a novel by Marge Piercy that I failed to thoroughly enjoy. Her stories are so character-driven. I loved the composer, Dinah Adler, in this story— how she took nourishment from nature around her Cape Cod home and from her adopted family next door, but still yearned for a deeper and more musical family life. I liked that her intimate relationships surprised her, in the ways they made her change and grow. I liked her music, the way Piercy portrayed Dinah’s compositional flow, through rhythms and timbres, melody and counterpoint (she writes several pieces of chamber music as well as orchestral & choral works). The description alone made me “hear” it! Very satisfying.
August 12, 2019
Through the perspectives of Dinah, Willie, Susan, and Laurie the reader gets inside the interconnected lives of these four people, each of whom has different artistic talents and hopes. The story is about love, professional attainment, loss, and discovery. Set at Cape Cod, the participants in this novel are convincingly presented by author Marge Piercy, in a work that flows easily and leaves the reader to decide whether decisions made by the characters are "good" or "bad" and in what context that judgement is made. You can also determine for yourself whether the ending weakened the story or enforced it.
June 26, 2017
I've always !oved Marge Piercy!
I read several of her book when I was a fledgling, but rabid, feminist as an undergrad back in the 1970's. There is no one who does character development like she does. This book is not an exception. Each character is three dimensional and the book sings with real people with real life issues. I was enamored from page 1. I'm not into being a spoiler by discussing story lines. All I can say is that this is a damn good read and I'd recommend it to anyone.
I read several of her book when I was a fledgling, but rabid, feminist as an undergrad back in the 1970's. There is no one who does character development like she does. This book is not an exception. Each character is three dimensional and the book sings with real people with real life issues. I was enamored from page 1. I'm not into being a spoiler by discussing story lines. All I can say is that this is a damn good read and I'd recommend it to anyone.
June 29, 2017
I Really liked this book and Marge Piercy is a keeper. The menage a trots is at the core of the novel, and some of the sex while not graphic, is evocative and sensuous, but the book is about people and how we live together. I really disliked Susan and loved Dinah. But I won't spoil it! Piercy is known as a feminist and she explores a lot of protoypical women in this book. I'm not doing the book justice. Modern musical composition is elucidated quite well.
July 3, 2025
I loved this novel. Read it 10 yrs ago.
Tried to look it up today and all I got was other novels called Summer People. By eg Julie Cohen or this one - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
So I popped in here to redress the algorithm balance, which seems to have forgotten Marge Piercy.
Tried to look it up today and all I got was other novels called Summer People. By eg Julie Cohen or this one - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
So I popped in here to redress the algorithm balance, which seems to have forgotten Marge Piercy.
December 21, 2017
It is a while since I read this book but I remember chiselling my way through it while commuting into London, two hours each way.
As ever, intelligent and interesting a read, it did reward the effort. Not one I have a yen to come back to, to be honest.
As ever, intelligent and interesting a read, it did reward the effort. Not one I have a yen to come back to, to be honest.
January 15, 2024
Engaging story
This was a very detailed story. I felt that I actually knew these characters. There were, however, perhaps too many storylines going on simultaneously. Because of this, the book was probably close to twice as long as it needed to be.
This was a very detailed story. I felt that I actually knew these characters. There were, however, perhaps too many storylines going on simultaneously. Because of this, the book was probably close to twice as long as it needed to be.
February 3, 2026
Susan, Willie, and Dinah had a comfortable relationship, until things changed. They were permanent residents of Cape Cod, but the return of the summer people disturbed their equilibrium and introduced new challenges. Character driven, well written.
June 30, 2018
Great beach read with a little more substance
June 5, 2021
Good easy read.
July 18, 2022
Reminded me of a modern-day Madame Bovary.
December 29, 2023
This book is one that has stayed with me.
June 10, 2008
Susan and Willie are a husband a wife that live on the Cape with a little house next to theirs that houses their long time lover Dinah. Every summer the Cape is invaded by wealthy neighbors and Susan longs to be one of them. She ends up obsessed with her neighbor and in the course of that rifts happen to upset there long time comfortable relationship.
I am a fan of Marge Piercy. I have enjoyed her poetry and several books. For me, her books really are written in such a way that I can feel and see what is going on very clearly. They make me yearn to actually have been there after I look up from the book. I was wanted to know Dinah, Willie and Susan. I wanted to shake Susan to actually see Tyrone for what he was - a snob who used her. I wanted to tell Jimmy that how he is in his relationships isn't healthy. But what I loved most was the development of the characters and the descriptions of the relationship between Dinah, Willie and Susan pre-rift.
I am a fan of Marge Piercy. I have enjoyed her poetry and several books. For me, her books really are written in such a way that I can feel and see what is going on very clearly. They make me yearn to actually have been there after I look up from the book. I was wanted to know Dinah, Willie and Susan. I wanted to shake Susan to actually see Tyrone for what he was - a snob who used her. I wanted to tell Jimmy that how he is in his relationships isn't healthy. But what I loved most was the development of the characters and the descriptions of the relationship between Dinah, Willie and Susan pre-rift.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2008
Dinah, a composer, lives in a house by a pond on Cape Cod next door to her lovers, a married couple, Willie and Susan. Over the course of a year, Susan’s obsession with a wealthy man across the pond leads to a rift between Dinah and the couple, leading to her affair with a flutist for whom she is composing. The small community around the pond leads to an intensity of feelings unusual in a community.
Well-written, but the characters are difficult to completely relate to despite some of their universal characteristics. Not recommended, maybe better for older readers?
Well-written, but the characters are difficult to completely relate to despite some of their universal characteristics. Not recommended, maybe better for older readers?
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