Dark summer

by Mark Upton

A great autographed and signed copy of Dark Summer by Mark Upton (Alias Lawrence Sanders). The book bears an inscription and the AUTOGRAPH of Mark Upton (Lawrence Sanders) inside the front cover. About the Author ( Lesley Andress, Mark Upton; 1920-98) In his time, LAWRENCE SANDERS ranked right up there in popularity with Stephen King, Danielle Steele and only a handful of other newsstand rack superstars, so much so that his name is more prominent on the covers of his books than their titles, and this has may have contributed to his not being taken very seriously among fans of this genre. Too bad. Despite a reputation as the Robin Leach of the detective novel, perhaps best remembered now for his frothy, padded paperbacks of technology, sex and the peccadilloes of the rich and famous, Sanders wrote some damn entertaining, and even provocative and influential books in several crime genres, from capers to thrillers to police procedurals and yes, even private eyes. Sure, the sex was sleazy and frequent, more kink than think, and the attitudes towards various races and particularly women seem hopelessly outdated now, and frequently offensive even then, drawing the ire of many critics over the years, and raising more than a few questions about the author's own sexuality. But man, could the guy spin a yarn. A journalist for over twenty years, working for such publications as Mechanics Illustrated andScience and Mechanics, Sanders kept plugging away at writing fiction. A series of short stories featuring hard-boiled insurance investigator Wolf Lannihan appeared in the pages of the skin mag, Swank, in 1968-69, but his real break came with the publication of his first novel in 1969.PLEASE ITEM WILL BE SHIPPED WITH SIGNATURE REQUIRED FOR DELIVERY. IF THE PACKAGE IS NOT DELIVERED DUE TO LACK OF SIGNATURE THE BUYER WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR SHIPPING COSTS AND WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM ANY REFUNDS ISSUED UPON THE RETURN OF THE ITEM.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life in Penlow Park, a luxury enclave in upstate New York, is enjoying the late 70s with a mixture of money, sex and good living. Paul and Laura Fayette are middle-aged, empty-nesters - he works in a bank in Manhattan, she is a housewife - who love each other dearly, share everything and enjoy the physicality of their relationship. Their friends, Clint and Margaret Stahl, are not quite so lucky however - he works for Paul and chases anything in a skirt, not bothering to hide it from his wife who is seemingly resigned to this life. Into this - and the Penlow Park Country Club - come widowed Diane Cheney and her father, Colonel Benjamin Coulter. The widow Cheney turns everyone’s heads and, with Coulter’s seemingly unlimited funds and penchant for magic tricks, they soon have the town under their spell. As one of the blurbs reads, “[widow Cheney] materialises again and again, further enticing and ensaring Paul, Laura, Clint and Margaret, setting them forever outside the bounds of society as they once knew it. DARK SUMMER is a novel of ordinary, comfortable life going suddenly, fatally askew...” And I wouldn’t argue with that.
A book of two halves, the first is a fairly intimate portrayal of long-term marriage and a couple still in love (though the description of Laura is brutally honest, even if it does embrace her age) that works well - Paul worries about work, they both worry about their children (away at college) and their place in the world and I liked it a lot. Clint and Margaret are the opposite to this, narked and narky with each other, their relationship doomed from the moment we meet them. The introduction of Widow Cheney and the Colonel shifts the book into something else altogether, pushing the book into thriller and then supernatural territory in ways that are sometimes laboured, sometimes wonderfully subtle. Sex oozes through the pages, between the couples and their outside conquests, through fantasies and fears that aren’t expressed to loving partners but still acted out by others and Upton seems to relish this though it’s not explicit - there are lots of mentions of moistness and thatches, but nothing graphic. The pacing in the first half is good, as is the writing - a lot of short, clipped sentences (Lawrence Sanders - Upton was his pseudonym - is famous for writing crime novels) including a whole paragraph opening Chapter Two with no full stops - but it seems to lose its way in the centre (as if it’s struggling with the switch from reality to supernatural). It picks up again, especially after three people are vividly killed in a house fire and rattles towards the ending, which is abrupt and unexpected and ever-so-slightly odd. The main characters work, even if their thinking processes feel a bit alien to a modern reader and the elusiveness of Cheney and the Colonel (we never really find out who or what they are) is well done. I enjoyed this, it’s not great art and doesn’t pretend to be, but it’s competently put together and entertaining and if you like sleazy late 70s thrillers, you’ll probably enjoy this.

[Latoya Ndlovu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews on here but I just had to for this book (my first review was not posted so let me give it another go). This book could have been so much more but honestly it was a bit of a mess. I don't appreciate books that are left in the air or up for interpretation because we never learn what Diane and/or the Colonel really wanted (what was their motive for disrupting these people's lives and were they even really related?). The ending was really surprising because why would Paul and Laura do all of that for an apparition (or succubus or whatever she was)? Also, Margaret and the Colonel? We never really learn the truth and that was really really disappointing. Also, we can't not talk about the offensive terms that are all over this book. So I would recommend this book if you enjoy making up your own interpretations, sprinkled with some offensive language of course.

[Hugo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly indebted to Peyton Place in its depiction of the hard-working idle rich, overburdened with ennui and gossip, and sliding gradually into darker, supernatural territory, before a shocking turn of events and then a rather rushed ending, leaving its antagonists unexplained and largely unexplored.