Summerlong

I read this book in 2 days! It was a very enjoyable read and I had a hard time putting it down.

Summerlong is a slowly building, highly atmospheric read set in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, on a commuter island near Seattle. There, retired historian Abe Aronson lives a pleasantly cantankerous life, joined regularly by his girlfriend Joanna, a stewardess nearing retirement. Together, they have a wonderfully sardonic, yet very comfortable relationship, which has grown very close over the twenty years that they have been not-married and not-officially-dating (but sleeping together nonetheless). It's rare to see such a curiously uncategorised couple in literature.

One day, they go to their usual local restaurant, where a new waitress catches their eye. Lioness is special. She has a classical look about her, as if she belongs into antiquity. Somehow she shines and draws everyone's attention without meaning to.

It is Joanna who offers her a chance to stay in Abe's garage when Lioness complains of the cold of her current bedsit. And so Abe gains a lodger who leaves an impression on him, Joanna, and Joanna's lesbian daughter, and who appears to be on the run from something vague and undefined.

The novel is richly evocative and atmospheric, slowly building a sense of the unreal from subtle beginnings to ever more archetypal, mythical proportions. It's full of detail that adds to the atmosphere, but lean and not bloated with a single unnecessary word. The human relationships, dialogue, habits - they are utterly authentic, as if taken from real life.

If you like mythical fantasy, it is a wonderful treat. Even if that's not a genre you're familiar with, you'll struggle to find a more absorbing, beautiful novel this year.

A beautifully written allegorical tale set in the Pacific North West of the USA. Abe, a retired history professor who plays harmonica and writes his book has a long term relationship with Joanna Delvecchio, a senior airline stewardess, with four years to go to the end of her career, and with Jo's often troubled daughter, Lily, who has a series of failed lesbian relationships behind her. They've all been together for twenty years, though they each maintain a separate household, Lily and Del on the mainland, Abe on Gardner, one of the many islands in Puget Sound.

Life is predictable until the arrival of the unlikely sounding Lioness Lazos, a quiet but charismatic waitress at Abe's local diner. Whatever it is that causes Abe and Del to brefriend the newcomer spins its gentle effect wherever she treads. The island seems to be undergoing a perfect summer, flowers bloom where no flowers should be, orcas dance offshore and gradually the lives of three people are irrevocably changed. Who is Lioness and what, or who is she running from?

Saying more than that would give away the twist, but suffice it to say it's a retelling of a very old story. This is a gentle tale with a bittersweet ending - slightly more bitter than sweet.

I received this as an uncorrected proof review copy from Netgalley

When I come back from Lyonnesse

With magic in my eyes,

All marked with mute surprise

My radiance rare and fathomless,

When I came back from Lyonnesse

With magic in my eyes!

-Thomas Hardy

Abe & Joanna are relaxing in a local restaurant they’ve been frequenting for years. They lead quiet little lives, in a quiet little town. They’ve been together for ages. Both are deep into middle age and for the most part satisfied with the life they live. Then a new waitress appears. She is quite simply magical. Abe quotes poetry when he sees her, and can’t stop saying “Primavera”, she inspires him to think of the painting by Botticelli. The girl is lovely, graceful and so different. Joanna is also drawn to her and driven by a desire to protect the girl they offer her a room in their garage.

Nothing is ever the same. She inspires change in everyone and everything she meets. Flora and Fauna. Children. Abe, Joanna and her daughter Lilly. Everything around her grows and flourishes.

This is a lovely, strange book. What happens when you enter into the world of myth and legends? You certainly can’t stay the way you were. You reach out. You try new things. It’s wonderful and terrible at the same time.

I read this book about a month ago, but I couldn’t write the review and I’m glad I didn’t. This requires a little thought. You need to steep in it. The writing is lyrical and descriptive.

“When she continued, her voice sounded like the rain ruffling softly at the window, driven by a wind from accross the world, “But some, a very few, come to the gods all on their own.”

The world shifts and changes. Ordinary things become otherworldly in an instant, and you get the feeling that it was always that way, we normal people just never saw it properly.

“They faced each other silently over the plastic bags, which in the freezing starlight semed to Lilly to be transofrming themselves into great, slow, cheese-green waves, poised to crush and drown her if she looked at them too directly. She said at last, quietly. “I do wish to say farewell.”

It’s a book full of visions and dreams. I didn’t appreciate it fully the first time I read it. From what I’ve heard, this is Mr. Beagle’s gift. He also wrote The Last Unicorn which has a reputation for loveliness and quality. I’ve never read it, but I really need to now.

You can never go wrong with Peter S. Beagle. Always a lovely, entertaining read and this is no exception.

Once is a while a person appears in your life and after knowing them, you realize you will never be the same. This is the story of "Summerlong", a story of relationships, and family divisions, and how when we least expect it, magic comes along and changes us. And when it's true magic, we are astonished, amazed and discover things about ourselves we never knew. And when that person leaves, we are left mourning our loss. I loved this book, and will recommend it to my library system for purchase.

I have not read any of Beagle’s other works, although I am a huge fan the movie version of “The last unicorn”. The tone of this book was bittersweet. I really felt like I was in the story and emotional vested in what happened to them.The character development of all the main characters was so realistic. Even though I am younger than Joanna and Abe, I can relate to the feelings of being stuck in life and someone new coming in and shaking that up. Lioness was intriguing and as the story goes on you want to know more about what secrets she is hiding and where she comes from. Lily is an unlikable character but she has to be for the story. Although I didn't agree with all her choices, its easy to see why she did. The ending was sad but necessary. I really enjoy how Beagle creates the setting and atmosphere. His writing stye is very unique and I enjoyed it immensely. This book is essentially about life changes and how they come wherever we are ready or not. A powerful read that Irate 5 stars out of 5 !

This review will be post on amazon.ca and Goodreads on September 30, 2016

The Innkeeper's SongThere's no shortage of books that are modern retellings of old myths and legends. Summerlong is another one. With the small difference that it's not about the heroes of the myth. It's about the ordinary people they meet. And whose lives they screw up while they relive an age-old story. Now doesn't that sound cheerful?

It is hard to say much more about the book without spoiling too much. I needed to read more than half of it before I could even answer the question 'So what is this book about?' Before that...well things happened but I had no idea why or how those things were connected. But while in most other books, I would have yelled 'Just come to the point already' but Beagle has a way of writing that made me not care about the fact that I had no clue what was going on. (I was reminded of another book of his: The Innkeeper's Song which is also not exactly fast-paced and tight-packed with plot but Summerlong is even more extreme). It's not a book that can be easily shelved into any genre (Fantasy? Urban Fantasy? A love story? Magical realism?) and it's not going to appeal to you if you are looking for anything that fits easily in any of those categories.
It's also not a happy book (but not one without hope either). But it's still a very very beautiful one.

This is a beautifully written, modern fairy tale. The relationship between the central characters is realistic and wonderfully normal even when surrounded by very abnormal things. The prose has an economy that I like and the plotting is streamlined, but in truth, this is a novel with very little story. The characters are the stars here and Beagle has constructed them with true skill.

Summerlong is a perfect portrait of the Puget Sound islands, the interesting people who choose to live there and what happens when the islanders of today come in contact with myth and legend. Why would a middle aged woman suddenly take up open-water kayaking? Why would a whole family, father, mother and daughter fall in love with a strange young girl. If you've never been to the Washington State islands, or spent time in Seattle, you'll want to go, have coffee at Pike Market and scan the crowds for wayward gods.

Love a good fantasy with adults in a long term relationships getting their world messed with appearance of an interesting stranger. Made me go back and read The Last Unicorn too. Happy to see Peter Beagle back!

This is a quiet, dreamy sort of book, set on the Puget Sound, and very familiar to anyone who's been to the area. Almost from the get go, the style and prose of Summerlong reminded me of Guy Gavriel Kay, though the only book of his I could say this is similar to is Ysabel. However, the similarity persisted for the whole story.

It's hard to say much about the story without giving away the plot, and the plot of this book, distilled down to its essence, is the very, very old "a stranger comes to town" trope. In doing so, the lives of our two no-longer-young protagonists are upended. It makes for a very bittersweet story, with a lot of character growth and musings about the nature of love thrown in.

When so much about Beagle has recently been focused on legal issues, this is a triumphant return to his peak fiction form.

Ahhhh, my soul rejoices at a new Beagle book. It's just as wonderful as I hoped.

Beagle is a master of fairytale, deftly creating a gossamer magic on the page. Summerlong is a tale that merges classic myth with modern storytelling. Absolutely beautiful.

Peter S.. Beagle, the winner of the Locus, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Myythopoeic awards, is best-known for his ’60s fantasy classic, The Last Unicorn. I also very much enjoyed his novella, Lila the Werewolf, and I See By My Outfit, a travel memoir of his cross-country motorcycle trip in the ’60s.

His strange new urban fantasy, Summerlong, a retelling of the Persephone myth, set in Seattle and on an island on Puget Sound, is about climate change: it explores fertility, flowerings, harvest, and death. He portrays a magical spring and summer, caused by a divine contretemps between Persephone and Hades. Persephone has left her husband Hades, is hiding out in Seattle, and is working as a waitress. As you can imagine, both Hades and her mother Demeter are searching for her.

But the gods are in the background, beings from another world. Beagle focuses on the human protagonists who mirror the gods: Abe, a retired history professor and a blues fan, and Joanna, a fiftysomething flight attendant who loves basketball and is tired of flight. The two have been lovers for decades. Abe lives in a house on Gardner Island while restless Joanna has an apartment in Seattle. Her dream? To go kayaking and camping, even though she cannot swim. She also worries about her daughter, Lily, a lesbian who makes bad decisions about relationships.
Botticelli's Primavera

Botticelli’s Primavera

One night, when Abe and Joanna are eating dinner at the Skyliner diner, Abe is struck by the resemblance of Lioness, their smart, savvy, beautiful waitress, to Botticelli’s Primavera. Before you know it, Abe has invited Lioness to move into his garage, and the beautiful spring on the island is magically extended into summer and fall, with flowers from all seasons blooming at the same time. Abe and the neighbors observe some odd scenes: Lioness talks to a lost baby orca; she also teaches the neighborhood children how to pick flowers from different seasons out of a hole in the earth. (Then she tells them they cannot.) Some wonder if she is a witch.

Abe and Joanna bloom, too. Abe begins to play harmonica with a blues group, and Joanna takes kayaking lessons. But Lily falls in love with Lioness, and Joanna meets Lioness’ mother at the market and a mysterious man who rides the ferry back and forth…

Here is a beautiful description of the magic climate.

"Even stranger than having their own exclusive climate was the fact that Joanna had no sense at all of the summer passing. Well into June and early July, the air still kept the soft green taste of April, and the constant smell of damp grass and earth, even when there had been no rain. The rain came as regularly as in Seattle, but on Gardner Island it fell at dawn, leaving the day glittering behind it, or in the night, steadily, but so lightly that the mist had all evaporated by morning. Leaves that should have begun to change color by now, and even to drop, showed no such inclination..."

This book is very slight but lovely. Occasionally Abe and Joanna’s encounters with the gods are jarring, but the blurring of boundaries between the triangle of gods and humans is very sophisticated. I think this is worth a second read. I am adding it to my collection of retold fairy tales and myths.

In Summerlong, a mysterious young woman named Lioness appears on an island in the Pacific Northwest and enters the lives of middle-aged, long-term partners, Abe Aronson and Joanna Delvecchio, and Joanna’s adult daughter, Lily. As these three become increasingly aware of Lioness’s unique abilities and troubling past, their own lives become more tumultuous. When the havoc subsides, what will remain?
Based in Greek myth, Summerlong is Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series for adults and is equally compelling. Here, just as Abe, Joanna, and Lily become strangely mesmerized by Lioness, so too the reader becomes so drawn into this novel that it is impossible to put aside.

Wow. I'm not sure I can do this book justice. Peter S Beagle still has the ability to entrap his audience. I loved The Last Unicorn as a kid and now that I am older, I love that he has written a book that makes me wistful.
There are a number of things I love about this book but my favorite is that the characters are in their twilight years. It's hard to find a fantasy novel that doesn't feature kids. I loved the humor and the truth in this book.
Peter S Beagle has a way of changing the way you look at the world and this book was no exception.
I don't know if this book would appeal to 20 somethings. Not sure it would have captivated me the same way in my youth but now that I am of a certain age (not quite as old as the characters), I have to say I really appreciated this book.

Abe is a retired history professor living on Gardner Island. He has been attempting to write a book for years and loves to play the blues on his harmonica. Joanna lives in Seattle when she is not on the island with Abe. She is an airline attendant doing her best to avoid retirement and worrying about her adult daughter, Lily who seems to have a preternatural knack for finding the most unsuitable lovers. Abe and Joanna have a long-term relation that is, if not exciting, comfortable despite or perhaps because of their long periods of separation. It is a relationship sustained more by friendship and familiarity than by passion. They have learned to make compromises to make their relationship work: Abe limits the amount of time he plays his harmonica because it irritates Joanna and she keeps secret her yearning to go on a long kayaking trip despite having never kayaked because she knows Abe would worry especially when he learns that she wants to go alone.

When they meet Lioness, a new young waitress at their favourite diner who is looking for a warm place to stay, they offer her their garage But no one is more surprised than they at this offer. They are usually very careful about protecting their privacy but there is just something about this young woman. For one thing, her arrival on the island seems to coincide with an unusual period of seemingly endless summer.

But it soon becomes apparent that Lioness is hiding something in her past that will have an impact on the seeming idyllic life on Gardner Island. When this past finally catches up with her, she decides to break the impasse that exists in Abe’s and Joanna’s relationship. On the surface, her method seems cruel and completely out of character but is, in fact, a last gift. As in the myth that inspired this novel, as much as we may hate it, summer must end so that we can prepare for winter, and familiarity and peace in a relationship is not enough if it is purchased at the expense of our dreams; sometimes, like the bandaid on a cut, there is required a quick and painful yank to remove it so that the air can get in –the shock may be upsetting, there may be blood and it may hurt for a while but, eventually, it is clear that it was necessary if real healing is to occur.

Summerlong by author Peter S. Beagle is a beautiful tale mixing myth with reality written in the lyrical prose that is his trademark. It is a reminder that life is too short to spend it in a rut no matter how comfortable and that we need the seasons in our lives as much as we need them in the year. It is a story about taking risks, of letting go of the past to enjoy the future, that the end of summer is not the end of everything but rather a new beginning, a time to harvest what we have spent our spring and summer sowing. In many ways, it reminded me as much of Eccleastes 3:1-8 as it did mythology:

<i>To Everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven</i>

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

The Puget Sound setting and mythological overtones of Peter S. Beagle’s new novel, Summerlong, made it sound irresistible to me — and it turned out to be a lovely end-of-summer read. A long-term unmarried couple, one living in Seattle and the other across the water on Gardner Island, find their lives transformed in unexpected ways when they meet an enchanting but mysterious young waitress. Where does she come from, and what is she fleeing? Why does she have such a magical effect on everyone around her? As her secrets are slowly revealed, we find that nothing can ever be quite the same again.

I really appreciated how Beagle treated the theme of mature love and relationships, a subject not often approached in fantasy fiction these days. He’s brave enough to acknowledge that some hurts cannot easily be healed, that endings in life are often not as tidy as turning the last page of a book. I liked seeing the characters constantly evolve, as old routines die away and new capacities come to light — being retirement age doesn’t mean losing one’s capacity to learn and grow, after all.

I did find that I enjoyed the build-up of the story, characters, and the setting — which is very vividly and accurately evoked — more than the denouement. To me the mythological aspects were more effective when hinted at than when overtly referenced. Still, the world and people of Summerlong will linger in my memory for more than a season, leaving traces of beauty, wisdom, and heartache behind.

5 (probably biased) stars--it was amazing.

Beagle is one of those authors that just speaks to me. I enjoy fantasy, which is his primary genre, but more than that, I love his writing. This is a short book (nearly a novella), and it might be too quirky or slow for some people, but I absolutely loved this little parable of a strange woman who shows up on an island in the Pacific Northwest.

Beagle is so good at description and mood. And his characters practically jump off the page.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

I will read anything Peter S. Beagle writes. It's all so wonderfully magical.

None of Peter S Beagle's books bear even the remotest resemblance to any of the others and yet I think you could always tell something was written by him because they each carry his signature style - fragile, lovely prose that manages to hold a tensile strength that is both unexpected and yet perfectly right, an unearthliness that is also the best kind of mundane. This is a beautiful book. A coming of age for those who thought their growing up was decades behind them. Without treading over old ground at all, it manages to convey a feeling found in The Last Unicorn and also in A Fine and Private Place while still being very much it's own thing. Beagle does write such interesting, vivid and 'human' female protagonists and he often does it best when they are not human at all. I really don't want to drop any spoilers so I won't go into the plot. Suffice to say that if you are looking for something literary yet speculative with a heart that is all too often missing from contemporary fantasy, look no further.

Engrossing, fascinating, wonderful. I could not stop reading this book, started it and then stayed up all night to finish it!

This was sweet, lovely, and Peter S. Beagle at his finest. 5/5

This book is everything you've ever come to expect from Peter Beagle. Stark beauty and whimisical magic in the most mundane of places. This is mythical fantasty brought to life in new and breathtaking ways, tilting your normal assumption and comforts of how mythology should done and put them into new hands, flushing new colors and drawing new glory from a brand new spellbinding way of treating them to a modern audience.

I was just as caught in the romance, deep and fleeting where it could be found, of this piece as I was moved, and broken, by its moments of compelling dispair. I agree with many reviewers that this book reaches gentle hands into your chest and before you realize it's gotten its claws around your heart and is holding on for dear life to itself and you until the tale can be told to its end.

"Beloved author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) returns with this long-anticipated new novel, a beautifully bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate.

It was a typically unpleasant Puget Sound winter before the arrival of Lioness Lazos. An enigmatic young waitress with strange abilities, when the lovely Lioness comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice.

As an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, Lioness is drawn to a complicated family. She is taken in by two disenchanted lovers—dynamic Joanna Delvecchio and scholarly Abe Aronson — visited by Joanna’s previously unlucky-in-love daughter, Lily. With Lioness in their lives, they are suddenly compelled to explore their deepest dreams and desires.

Lioness grows more captivating as the days grow longer. Her new family thrives, even as they may be growing apart. But lingering in Lioness’s past is a dark secret — and even summer days must pass."

Firstly, that cover! Secondly, it's Peter S. Beagle people!

A story of Summer that was too quickly gone. This was a memory dipped in nostalgia and spun in to words. TI was beautiful and created a sense of longing once gone.

This is my first Beagle book and I liked it. The writing is very smooth and endearing. And I adore the main characters, which I think are quite unique since both are elderly, a 50something senior flight attendant and a 60something historian. Just the stories on their daily life is quite enchanting, supported by a great narrative about the location that feel alive. I normally hate long and frequent mention on the surrounding environment - river, sea, plants, soil, weather - but in this book, it becomes part of the story. The characters, Joanna and Abe, are definitely people you'd like to call your friends. They are nice people but with depths.

The plot is very simple. The main leads met a mysterious charismatic beautiful young woman who apparently running away from something. Halfway through the book my enjoyment was rather diminished since I guessed who she really was - many clues here and there - so, one possible (rating) star dropped. Sorry, I just love surprises. But then another star dropped when two lead characters did something that I think was quite out of the blue and out of character. And then the climactic ending felt a bit off as well - the scale and stake of the conflict should have given more impact and not too localized.

I think three stars for the writing is enough. I will definitely read his other works.