The Summer Before the Summer of Love: Stories

By Marly Swick

Book Overview

The stories in The Summer Before the summer of Love seductively combine life's barren sorrow with a sensual fullness. Marly Swick is consistently original and unflinching in her observations of the dynamics between friends and lovers, parents and children, husbands and wives. In 'The Other Widow, ' a grieving mistress meets her deceased lover's wife; in 'Crete, ' a woman who once escaped a grisly murder now finds herself faced with her daughter's death and the fear that her baby's life was taken because her own had been spared; in the title story, a girl goes to a Beatles concert with her mother and sister, and faces the tough emotional balancing act posed by her parents' recent separation. In a style that is as exquisite as it is unsentimental, Swick creates a true sense of how people really do live - and love - and does so with grace, intelligence, and humor.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060172541
• ISBN13: 9780060172541
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 209 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Breathtaking!

I can't praise this collection of stories highly enough. Marly Swick is an artist with words and she paints masterful pictures through her stories. Highly recommended.

Some of the best short stories I've ever read

I am always excited when I discover a new writer who knocks me out, and Marly Swick definitely qualifies as one of them. Real, whole characters. Intriguing situations. Wry humor. Clarity of emotion and experience. A compelling voice. Resonant, moving endings. Short story perfection.