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Rating: 
Summary: "Human nature is the novelist's raw material."
Review: Elizabeth Taylor's novel "In a Summer Season" is the story of Kate--a well-to-do widow with two grown children, Tom and Louisa. She has remarried a much younger man--Dermot, and he remains embarrassingly unemployed. Rather than appear to live off Kate's money, Dermot embarks on a series of preposterous projects--including mushroom growing. All of these projects are destined for failure. Many people believe that Kate's marriage is destined for failure too. "In a Summer Season" covers a brief period of Kate's life. She is aging, and combats this with frequent trips to her hairdresser to "rinse" any emerging grey or white hairs. Kate seems to be the very last person to realize she has marriage problems, and she's developed a breezy manner that covers her unanalyzed distress. Tom, Kate's son admires Dermot--the two men are practically contemporaries, but Lou, Kate's daughter, smells problems on the horizon. Tom and Lou are both embroiled in romantic difficulties of their own. Lou has a giant crush on Father Blizzard--whose high-church tendencies have made him unwelcome at the local church. Tom is madly in love with the elusive Araminta, the daughter of his mother's best friend. Kate's Aunt Ethel--a self-styled people-watcher chronicles events in the household through letters to her friend, and bird-watcher, Gertrude. Ethel's observations are conducted with curiosity rather than maliciousness as she waits for the marriage to crumble. Mrs. Meacock, the housekeeper and cook distracts herself with a book of amusing sayings she's collected during her varied employment. She, too, is aware that Kate's marriage is decaying. "In a Summer Season" is the second Elizabeth Taylor novel I've read. Unfortunately, this novel does not match the perfection of "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont." While Taylor pays delightfully detailed attention to the secondary characters (the housekeeper, Aunt Ethel, Father Blizzard) the main characters, Kate and Dermot, remain somewhat neglected and are vague and flat as a result. This weakens the novel and resulted in my four-star rating. "In a Summer Season" reads rather like a Joanne Trollope novel. It's a well-written book--no argument there--but the main characters needed some added dimension--displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: "Human nature is the novelist's raw material."
Review: Elizabeth Taylor's novel "In a Summer Season" is the story of Kate--a well-to-do widow with two grown children, Tom and Louisa. She has remarried a much younger man--Dermot, and he remains embarrassingly unemployed. Rather than appear to live off Kate's money, Dermot embarks on a series of preposterous projects--including mushroom growing. All of these projects are destined for failure. Many people believe that Kate's marriage is destined for failure too. "In a Summer Season" covers a brief period of Kate's life. She is aging, and combats this with frequent trips to her hairdresser to "rinse" any emerging grey or white hairs. Kate seems to be the very last person to realize she has marriage problems, and she's developed a breezy manner that covers her unanalyzed distress. Tom, Kate's son admires Dermot--the two men are practically contemporaries, but Lou, Kate's daughter, smells problems on the horizon. Tom and Lou are both embroiled in romantic difficulties of their own. Lou has a giant crush on Father Blizzard--whose high-church tendencies have made him unwelcome at the local church. Tom is madly in love with the elusive Araminta, the daughter of his mother's best friend. Kate's Aunt Ethel--a self-styled people-watcher chronicles events in the household through letters to her friend, and bird-watcher, Gertrude. Ethel's observations are conducted with curiosity rather than maliciousness as she waits for the marriage to crumble. Mrs. Meacock, the housekeeper and cook distracts herself with a book of amusing sayings she's collected during her varied employment. She, too, is aware that Kate's marriage is decaying. "In a Summer Season" is the second Elizabeth Taylor novel I've read. Unfortunately, this novel does not match the perfection of "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont." While Taylor pays delightfully detailed attention to the secondary characters (the housekeeper, Aunt Ethel, Father Blizzard) the main characters, Kate and Dermot, remain somewhat neglected and are vague and flat as a result. This weakens the novel and resulted in my four-star rating. "In a Summer Season" reads rather like a Joanne Trollope novel. It's a well-written book--no argument there--but the main characters needed some added dimension--displacedhuman
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