Farewell, Summer
 Cover, first edition | |
| Author | Helen Hooven Santmyer |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Deborah Healy |
| Cover artist | Deborah Healy |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Psychological fiction |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
Publication date | 1988 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 132 pp |
| ISBN | 0-06-015889-1 |
Farewell, Summer is a novella by Helen Hooven Santmyer. Written after her first two novels,[1] it was not published until after Santmyer's death. The novella tells the 1935 memories of Elizabeth Lane about the summer of 1905, when she had been eleven and in love with her "Wild West cousin" Steve Van Doren, who was romancing, to no avail, another cousin, Damaris, who is intent on never marrying and is planning on becoming a nun. The 1935 Elizabeth now understands what the 1905 Elizabeth was actually seeing.
At the time of her 1984 fame, Santmyer, aged 88, no longer remembered the novella, but a niece remembered seeing the manuscript, and a search was made for it amongst her papers.[2]
The brief plot summary that Theresa Stevens, the writer character in Santmyer's "...And Ladies of the Club", gives for her second book describes a woman who remembers twenty years back a romancing that she had been too young to understand at the time.
Plot summary
In 1935, Elizabeth Lake, a 41-year old academic feels compelled to return to Sunbury, Ohio, where she had sometimes stayed with her maternal grandparents as a child. Intending to do some professional writing, she runs into her cousin Tune, whom she had not seen since she was last in Sunbury thirty years before. In his 90s, Tune tells Elizabeth she ought to write down the story of the old days of the town, which sets Elizabeth to recalling her cousin Steve and the mistake of hers that contributed to his death.
21-year old Steve arrives from Texas after the death of his father. He is only able to find a little bit of work. He falls in love with Damaris. While she is attracted to Steve, she is too frightened of uncertainty to contemplate marriage, and intends to become a nun.
Crazy cousin Tobias, called Tobe or Bias, wounded at Chickamauga, is dead set on digging up the thousand dollars in gold he is certain he buried after the War, but regarding which he has absolutely no memory of the location. In order to "cure" Bias of his obsession, Steve buries his complete earnings of a hundred dollars in gold coins, mixed with shiny pennies: he is certain Bias with his poor vision and hands will be unable to realize the trickery. But indeed Bias does, and is so angry that someone stole from him, that he hurls the coins down the outhouse's toilet.
In hiding, Elizabeth overhears the last conversation between Steve and Damaris, where she rejects his marriage proposal while admitting that she loves him. The episode with the coins figures in her reasoning. Steve is dejected, but no one other than Elizabeth and Damaris knows why, and he announces that he plans to return to Texas. Damaris asks Elizabeth to pass on a message to Steve, that she will "always be faithful", which Elizabeth is aware is meant to sound like a reference to her religion to everybody, but which Steve will know means him. Elizabeth does not pass on the message.
Steve disappears, leaving a note, saying he apologizes for not repeating his plans to return to Texas, since it would sound like asking for money. Elizabeth's grandmother finds that perplexing, until Elizabeth explains about the cousin Bias incident. Steven dies in an accident while "riding the rods".
Elizabeth spends the following Christmas with her parents in England. They receive a letter from Sunbury, mentioning Damaris' upcoming marriage.
Reception
Farewell, Summer is a novella that relieves its reader of emotional upheavals ... it amuses with fond childhood memories.
[It is a] stylistically dated but curiously engaging story...
The author shines in her loving recollections of turn-of-the-century Ohio and her exploration of the ties that bind and break families.
Santmyer's fans will enjoy this slim, old-fashioned tale which pays careful attention to detail in describing family relationships.
Notes
Further reading
Book reviews
- Stewart, Rose Russell (May 19, 1988). "A Midsummer Romance in 1905". The Blade (Toledo). p. F7.
- "Farewell, Summer". Publishers Weekly. 1988.
- "Farewell, Summer". Kirkus Reviews. 1988.
- "At Lincoln Library". The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Illinois). September 25, 1988. p. 22.
On Santmyer
- Briggs-Bunting, Jane (July 16, 1984). "At 88, Helen Santmyer Belatedly Joins the Club of Big Best-Selling Novelists". People 22 (3).
- Quay, Joyce Crosby (1995). Early Promise, Late Reward: A Biography of Helen Hooven Santmyer, author of "...And Ladies of the Club". Knowledge, Ideas and Trends.
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