Love & Summer

LOVE & SUMMER

by William Trevor

 

Nominations: Booker Longlist 2009, Dublin Finalist 2011

 

Date Read: July 29, 2023

 

When a stranger rolls into the small town of Rathmoye on his bicycle for the summer, Ellie Dillahan’s life will be forever changed. Ellie is married to Dillahan and considers herself fortunate to be his wife on their small farm. She is content seeing to her husband’s needs, gathering the eggs, managing the accounts and any other tasks that land on her capable shoulders. 

 

Before moving to Rathmoye as Dillahan’s housekeeper, she was raised in a Catholic orphan’s home and had hoped for a chance to live in a normal household. After Dillahan’s wife and child died in a tragic accident, he sent for a housekeeper and Ellie is who he got. After they realized they got along very well, he asked her to marry him. Ellie jumped at the chance and was grateful for the blessings that had recently befallen her. Who needs passion when you have a stable home, a faithful husband and food on the table.

 

That is, until Florian Kilderry rolled into town. Florian considers himself a photographer but his subpar skills say otherwise. As Ellie slowly gets to know Florian over time, she romanticizes his past and present as the son of artists, an inheritor of a mansion and a connoisseur of literature. In him she sees what passion might be like and envisions a future that could be completely different than the one she has committed to.

 

Florian, in turn, finds Ellie charming and strong to have endured her tough upbringing by the nuns. They begin to spend more and more time together, all while the villagers wag their tongues behind their backs. Yet, Florian has not dissuaded Ellie’s notions of his riches. The mansion is a run-down heap, mired in debt and Florian believes the only way to resurrect his life is to flee Ireland.

 

After one night together of bad choices, Ellie realizes that if she were to run off with this man, she would utterly destroy Dillahan. Florian realizes that if he were to take Ellie with him, it would destroy his vision of making it on his own. So they both go their separate ways with broken hearts and the knowledge they made the right, agonizing decision.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Gentleman In Moscow

Image
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2018, Goodreads Finalist 2016, Kirkus Finalist 2016   Date Read: February 24, 2017   From Kirkus Reviews:   “Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.   Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfo
Read more

An Island

Image
AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2021   Date Read: December 10, 2022   A short but mighty novel, An Island explores the concept of home, family, identity, the impact of political upheaval and the immigrant experience, when one’s suffering is so intense they move from one shitty country to the next. Samuel has finally found a peaceful home on an island somewhere off the coast of Africa. He was hired as a lighthouse keeper and after a tumultuous life, most of which was spent in prison as a political prisoner, he has carved out a life for himself on this island, enjoying a tranquil existence that basks in the quiet tasks of daily living.   Only after exploring Samuel’s life does the reader understand why such an isolated, spare and lonely existence satisfy him, with no desire to escape but only to grow deeper roots. His life witnessed the end of the British occupation, the installation of a brutal dictator and yet another dictator after the first was poisoned. Sam
Read more

The Changeling

Image
THE CHANGELING by Victor LaValle   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2019, LA Times Finalist 2017, PEN/Jean Stein Finalist 2018   Date Read: July 21, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “A  tragedy thrusts a mourning father into peculiar, otherworldly corners of New York City. When Apollo and Emma have their baby, Brian, it feels like both reward and challenge for the new dad. Apollo, the son of a single mother, had been scraping by as a bookseller who hunts estate and garage sales for rare first editions, so even the unusual circumstance of Brian's birth (in a stalled subway train) seems like a blessing, as does the way Apollo stumbles across a first edition of  To Kill a Mockingbird  (inscribed by Harper Lee to Truman Capote, no less) shortly after. But after some young-parent squabbles and inexplicable images on their smartphones foreshadow trouble, the story turns nightmarish: Apollo finds himself tied up and beaten by Emma, then forced to listen to the sounds of Brian’s murder. LaValle has
Read more