It's Memorial Day weekend, which even here in sunny southern California, signals the advent of summer. And so I begin compiling my list of summer reads. And what better books to complement the season than novels set at summer camps?
Here are some I can't wait to read and re-read (blurbs are from goodreads.com):
"The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, from the best-selling author of Apologize, Apologize!,
introduces Riddle James Camperdown, the twelve-year-old daughter of the
idealistic Camp and his manicured, razor-sharp wife, Greer. It's 1972,
and Riddle's father is running for office from the family compound in
Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Between Camp's desire to toughen her up and
Greer's demand for glamour, Riddle has her hands full juggling her
eccentric parents. When she accidentally witnesses a crime close to
home, her confusion and fear keep her silent. As the summer unfolds, the
consequences of her silence multiply. Another mysterious and powerful
family, the Devlins, slowly emerges as the keepers of astonishing
secrets that could shatter the Camperdowns. As an old love triangle,
bitter war wounds, and the struggle for status spiral out of control,
Riddle can only watch, hoping for the courage to reveal the truth. The Last Summer of the Camperdowns is poised to become the summer's uproarious and dramatic must-read."
"It is 1930, the midst of
the Great Depression. After her mysterious role in a family tragedy,
passionate, strong-willed Thea Atwell, age fifteen, has been cast out of
her Florida home, exiled to an equestrienne boarding school for
Southern debutantes. High in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with its complex
social strata ordered by money, beauty, and girls’ friendships, the
Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a far remove from the free-roaming,
dreamlike childhood Thea shared with her twin brother on their family’s
citrus farm—a world now partially shattered. As Thea grapples with her
responsibility for the events of the past year that led her here, she
finds herself enmeshed in a new order, one that will change her sense of
what is possible for herself, her family, her country.
Weaving
provocatively between home and school, the narrative powerfully unfurls
the true story behind Thea’s expulsion from her family, but it isn’t
long before the mystery of her past is rivaled by the question of how it
will shape her future. Part scandalous love story, part heartbreaking
family drama, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is an
immersive, transporting page-turner—a vivid, propulsive novel about sex,
love, family, money, class, home, and horses, all set against the
ominous threat of the Depression—and the major debut of an important new
writer."
"Late on a warm summer
night in rural Missouri, an elderly camp director hears a squeal of
joyous female laughter and goes to investigate. At the camp swimming
pool he comes upon a bewildering scene: his counselors stripped naked
and engaged in a provocative celebration. The first camp session is set
to start in just two days. He fires them all. As a result, new
counselors must be quickly hired and brought to the Kindermann Forest
Summer Camp.
One of them is Wyatt Huddy, a genetically disfigured
young man who has been living in a Salvation Army facility. Gentle and
diligent, large and imposing, Wyatt suffers a deep anxiety that his
intelligence might be subnormal. All his life he’s been misjudged
because of his irregular features. But while Wyatt is not worldly, he is
also not an innocent. He has escaped a punishing home life with a
reclusive and violent older sister.
Along with the other new
counselors, Wyatt arrives expecting to care for children. To their
astonishment, they learn that for the first two weeks of the camping
season they will be responsible for 104 severely developmentally
disabled adults, all of them wards of the state. For Wyatt it is a
dilemma that turns his world inside out. Physically, he is
indistinguishable from the state hospital campers he cares for.
Inwardly, he would like to believe he is not of their tribe. Fortunately
for Wyatt, there is a young woman on staff who understands his
predicament better than he might have hoped.
At once the new
counselors and disabled campers begin to reveal themselves. Most are
well-intentioned; others unprepared. Some harbor dangerous inclinations.
Among the campers is a perplexing array of ailments and appearances and
behavior both tender and disturbing. To encounter them is to be
reminded just how wide the possibilities are when one is describing
human beings.
Soon Wyatt is called upon to prevent a terrible
tragedy. In doing so, he commits an act whose repercussions will alter
his own life and the lives of the other Kindermann Forest staff members
for years to come.
Written with scrupulous fidelity to the strong
passions running beneath the surface of camp life, The Inverted Forest
is filled with yearning, desire, lust, banked hope, and unexpected
devotion. This remarkable and audacious novel amply underscores Heaven
Lake’s wide acclaim and confirms John Dalton’s rising prominence as a
major American novelist."
"In a West Virginia forest in 1963, a group of children at
summer camp enter a foreboding Eden and experience an unexpected rite
of passage. Shelter is an astonishing
portrayal of an American loss of innocence as witnessed by a
mysterious drifter named Parson, two young sisters, Lenny and Alma,
and a feral boy called Buddy. Together they come to understand
bravery and the importance of compassion.
Phillips unearths a
dangerous beauty in this primeval terrain and in the hearts of her
characters. Lies, secrets, erotic initiations, and the bonds of love
between friends, families, and generations are transformed in a leafy
wilderness undiminished by societal rules and dilemmas. Cast in
Phillips’ stunning prose, with an unpredictable cast of characters
and a shadowy, suspenseful narrative, Shelter is a an
enduring achievement from one of the finest writers of our time."
"The summer that Nixon
resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable.
Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed.
In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the
height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and
degrees of satisfaction diverge.
The kind of creativity that is
rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through
life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed
so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress,
eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle.
Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and
becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best
friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic
dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep
expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore
the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and
the shapes their lives have taken.
Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings
explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class,
art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt
precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life."
"Every secret has a price.
For most girls,
sleepaway camp is great fun. But for Amy Becker, it's a nightmare.
Amy, whose home life is in turmoil, is sent to Camp Takawanda for
Girls for the first time as a teenager. Although Amy swears she hates
her German-immigrant mother, who is unduly harsh with Amy's autistic
younger brother, Amy is less than thrilled about going to camp. At
Takawanda she is subjected to a humiliating "initiation"
and relentless bullying by the ringleader of the senior campers. As
she struggles to stop the mean girls from tormenting her, Amy becomes
more confident. Then a cousin reveals dark secrets about Amy's
mother's past, which sets in motion a tragic event that changes Amy
and her family forever.
Camp is
a compelling coming-of-age novel about bullying, mothers and
daughters, and the collateral damage of family secrets. It will
resonate with a wide teenage readership.
Camp will be a strong addition to school recommended reading and summer reading
lists, and it is appropriate for anti-bullying programs. Mostly,
though,
Camp is a mother-daughter story for mothers and
daughters to share."
