Holds Alert: SUMMERLONG
How is this for an endorsement? “Summerlong (Harper/Ecco; Dreamscape; OverDrive Sample) is the Great White Midlife Crisis novel that Jonathan Franzen has tried to write (and failed) and Jonathan Lethem has tried to write (and failed) and Michael Chabon (wisely) half-avoided ever trying to write.”
That is how Jason Sheehan describes Dean Bakopoulos’s newest novel in his NPR review.
The story about a marriage on the rocks told with humor and unflinching candor is getting acclaim from several other notable book sources and could become one of the “it” books of the summer.
It is already among Oprah’s favorite “Dazzling New Beach Reads” and gets the nod from The Washington Post’s Ron Charles as well.
The folks at Oprah say Bakopoulos is “masterful when it comes to imagining the ways that we all long to cut loose from our everyday obligations.”
While Charles remarks that the novel is “sexy but surprisingly poignant” and that “Bakopoulos’s greatest talent is his ability to mix ribald comedy with heartfelt sorrow… finding out how these desperate dreamers get through their summer of love and lovelessness will make your own even more refreshing.”
It is Sheehan’s NPR’s review, however, that gives the best sense of the reading experience: “Do not read this book if you are unhappy. It will kill you. … Don’t read it if you’re sad. Don’t read it if you’re restless. … Don’t read it if, sometimes, you wake late at night and think of just slipping away in the dark, calculating how far away you’d be before anyone knew you were gone because if you do, Summerlong will take you down with it, man. It will break you.”
Holds in libraries are rising on light ordering.