Summer

By: Edith Wharton

Narrated by: Grace Conlin

Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Wharton's most erotic and lyrical novel, Summer explores a daring theme for 1917, a woman's awakening to her sexuality. Eighteen-year-old Charity Royall lives in the small town of North Dormer, ignorant of desire until the arrival of architect Lucius Harney. Like the succulent summer landscape in the Berkshires around them, Charity's romance is lush and picturesque, but its consequences are harsh and real.

Praised for its realism and candor by such writers as Joseph Conrad and Henry James and compared to Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Summer was one of Wharton's personal favorites of all her novels and remains as fresh and relevant today as when it was first written.

(P)1994 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Reader Grace Conlin distinguishes both men's and women's voices easily, using hushed, intimate tones to convey the sweetness of the romance. Yet an ephemeral quality in her delivery casts a shadow of reality on the story and reminds the listener that seasons change." (AudioFile)

Excellent first audible purchase!

Grace Conlin is a great reader. At first I thought she was going to be too fast, but her pacing is excellent. She sweeps you right into the story. And this is a concise Wharton tale. Similar tragic tones to her other books. However, some lovely descriptions of New England countryside in the summer. A sad contrast to her heroine. I'm not done yet, about half way, but I find myself looking for excuses to pop in the headphones and listen.

My favorite Wharton book so far

This is the third book of hers I've read. It's the least depressing, which is a good thing in my opinion. E. Wharton wrote beautiful prose and also knew how to tell a fast-paced story. My book club had a very lively discussion about class, gender, marriage, nature, and other interesting issues raised by this book.

Beguiling and Devastating

The Gilded Age indeed—gilded women in gilded cages. There is always a long suffering man who swoops down to rescue the wayward maiden. She is wayward in mind if not in body; intellectually if not in her determination to live as her authentic self. The wayward man slips embarrassedly but relievedly away without sanction.

The lover is this Wharton gem is beguiling. I was half seduced by him myself. Wharton’s descriptions of her wayward protagonist’s experiences are veiled but unmistakably erotic: The protagonist presses her body into the warm grass as she lolls on round hills, gazing into a shimmering blue sky. As she flowers in her lovers arms, Wharton lavishly describes the blooms of summer. There are many glimmering moon rises and piercing dawns; the
bulk of a mountain looming over the town are rolled out again and again lest the reader miss the point
But I don’t mind it because Wharton’s prose is a delight.

The story is devastating. Nothing has changed since this book was published in 1916. Women still have price tags dangling from them —the appraisals of men. The terms of value have changed; and the gilded cages much more disguised. But they serve the same devastating purpose.

Good, Quick, Read

good quick read...bummer of an ending though. Highly recommend if you're a fan of Edith Wharton, or novels from this era.

It's Okay

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I'm trying to get through all of Wharton's novels- I'd recommend this to a Wharton fan but not necessarily someone looking for that all encompassing "good read". It was scandalous at the time but it sort of has a predictable ending and I wasn't particularly satisfied with the heroine.

If you’ve listened to books by Edith Wharton before, how does this one compare?

There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the reader- I just didn't like her style. The reading felt very clipped and almost rushed.

Would you be willing to try another one of Grace Conlin’s performances?

Probably not.

Read too fast

Unable to enjoy because the reader’s voice was irritating and also she read it too fast as if she was rushing through it. I even decreased the speed but it did not help.

my my my

narrator was great. story was sad. but I guess.. thats how it goes. real life. ya know

love story

A classical sentimental story of a lost love. Well written and well read. heart wrenching

Deep shadows & soft light

It’s like a darker version of Sense and Sensibility; it’s heartbreaking, but then, the brokenness concludes with a soft, hazy sunrise of promise for a life that will be not only endurable, but calmly satisfying for at least 3 people.

The reckless, rending, self-indulgence of privileged youth, the horrific degradation of which humanity is capable, offset with recurring glimpses into its heights…l still rate this as a 5 star story. Edith Wharton understood and wrote with a capacity that vies with the power of better known authors, in sharing that profound insight. I’ll be reading a lot more by this author, and rate her ability to weave deliciously chosen words alongside Austen’s and Dickens’.

Her stories, the 2 I’ve read so far, unflinchingly reveal the blind frailty and disappointment that so many experience, more profoundly molded by societal norms and attitudes than can readily be understood. Yet, she gently offers a tangible, deeply comforting, proverbial “silver lining” for her characters and readers before the book closes. Hers is not the burst of happily ever after sunshine that even difficult narratives, such as Jane Eyre, reward in the “end.”

What I am loving about Wharton’s novels are the more relatable insights that can be gathered and kept, since so few of us get the fullness of joyful happy endings everyone longs for—not in mortality, at least.

The negative reviews frightened me

but I found the story enchanting, enthralling and somewhat ominously predictable. My first Edith Wharton but I believe I'll try another.