The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt

The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt
Buy The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Literary Fiction
Reviewer: Clare Reddaway
Summary: A perceptive, clever book. A pitch perfect analysis of a woman facing the debris of a collapsed relationship.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 224	Date: March 2011
Publisher: Sceptre
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1444710526
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Sometime after Mia's husband of thirty years, Boris, suggests a marriage 'pause', Mia goes mad and finds herself in a psychiatric hospital. Although this Brief Psychotic Disorder does not last long, she remains fragile and retreats to the town in Minnesota where she was brought up and where her elderly mother still lives. While Boris cavorts with the Pause, she struggles through the summer, learning to live without him. She builds relationships with her mother's friends, with her neighbours and with a group of teenage girls who form her creative writing class. Written in the first person, the book catalogues her progress using these friendships, her past, her reading and her shrink, Dr S.

This book is a portrait of a woman in agony gradually healing herself. The emotions in it are raw and exposed, as though a layer of skin has been stripped off. It is unflinching in describing madness and weeping, without descending into melodrama or sentiment. For the character Mia is a well-read, intellectual poet. She dissects her emotions clearly and dispassionately. The book is scattered with the poems that she writes in response to her situation, and with quirky line drawings. She draws on philosophers and scientists to interpret and explain what she is feeling and why Boris has behaved the way he has. She rakes through her past to try to find clues, and to mourn her relationship.

This makes the novel sound agonising. It is not. It is funny and gripping, and there are some intriguing characters besides Mia. My favourite is Abigail, a friend of Mia's mother, whose subversive embroidery is proudly shared with Mia. The story of the young teen girls would resonate with anyone who has been an outsider, and the be-wigged pre-schooler next door is charming. Hustvedt creates a wonderful juxtaposition of women on the brink of life, and women at the end of life, sandwiching the young mother neighbour in the middle. Her characterisation is specific and resonant, for instance when Boris is described as crying only during movies, oozing tears in two heavy streams during 'A Tree Grows in Broadway'. Hustvedt's cool observations, through Mia, are pitch perfect.

Perhaps this is the crucial point about this book – it rings true. The character of Mia is so well-drawn that she scarcely seems fictional. There is no artifice about her. The situation she is in is not an unusual one either in life or in fiction, but the way that Hustvedt writes about it makes it feel fresh and newly raw. Perhaps I'm biased as I enjoyed Hustvedt's book 'What I Loved' enormously, and was in a receptive frame of mind for 'The Summer Without Men'. However, I think it would be hard to read this book without admiring the writer's skilful prose and the range and variety of her intellectual references, as well as enjoying the story.

I would recommend this perceptive, clever book to anyone who is interested in any kind of human relationships.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

Further reading suggestion: Faces in the Water by Janet Frame and Atonement by Ian McEwan.

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You can read more book reviews or buy The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt at Amazon.com.

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