Diane Barnes's Reviews > In a Summer Season

There is a category of English novels that belong to a very small class of women writers who wrote during the middle half of the twentieth century. Barbara Pym, Elizabeth von Arnim, Mollie Panter-downes, Rosamond Lehman, and Jane Gardam, just to name a few. These authors wrote quiet tales of ordinary women dealing with ordinary circumstances, often only of importance to themselves. Their knowledge of the interior lives of their characters set them apart from others.

Now I can add Elizabeth Taylor to that list as well. I have read a lot of praise for her novels, but until now had never read one. This book was published in 1961, and is about a wealthy widow with two children, a 22 year old son and a 16 year old daughter, who remarries to a charming ne'er-do-well 10 years her junior. Things go just as you think they might, until an old friend whose wife has also died moves back into the village with his grown daughter. Things begin to get difficult for everyone involved.

What I appreciated most about this novel is the gentle way of telling the story, the way I related to all of the characters, and the sly humor inserted into every paragraph. Every one of them reacted in thought, word, and deed, exactly as I would have done in the same situation. The humor was sometimes wicked, but appropriate, and made me feel like a member of a special club of readers who "got" the private jokes.

So add me to the fan club for this lady.