The introduction to this novel tells us it is ‘the portrait of a middle-aged, middle-class housewife’, but that does it an injustice because it is so much more. The intro also says that ‘even if a literary work concerns unintellectual subjects, it is, nonetheless, the product of intellect’. How true! Soap operas, or serial dramas to give them their Sunday name, are often regarded as lesser forms of entertainment by the more snobbish elements of the intellectual elite and yet there is a strength to them. They not only reflect everyday life, albeit in microcosm, but they can also manipulate societal behaviour and explore previously taboo topics in a safe environment. The psychology behind them should not be underestimated, nor too should books which do not immediately smack of deep thought or highbrow contemplation. To do so is quite simply to close your eyes to their true value, often rendering yourself blind to their true depth.

In this novel, Elizabeth Taylor explores the (frequently subservient) role of women in 1950’s society which is often ‘at the expense of their own development’. That, too, shouldn’t be underestimated, but only if it leads to contentment. I remember watching a man acquiesce, without murmur, to instructions from his wife as she ordered him to do this and that. I knew both husband and wife well and quietly asked why he put up with being treated like that. He replied that with such a high-powered, responsible role at work, it was nice to come home and simply do as he was told, adding, ‘Of course I push back when I have to.’ Things are not always as black and white as they seem.

The reader understands why Kate’s friends had reservations about this second marriage to the charming but feckless Irishman who loved her, but who was perhaps also after her money.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, In a Summer Season introduces us to Kate Heron and her daily rituals. Widowed, she is now married to Dermot who is ten years younger and somewhat less driven than her late husband. They live in a house with her two children (well, one is twenty-two and the other is away at school, most of the time), Kate’s elderly Aunt Ethel and the housekeeper, Mrs Meacock who has dreams of her own. Hovering in the background is Dermot’s mother, Edwina, with aspirations for her son, and Sir Alfred, the grandfather with lofty ambitions for Tom!

Although their life appears to lack excitement, the reader is a fly on the wall and privy to Kate’s thoughts and to those of several other characters, too. The reader understands why Kate’s friends had reservations about this second marriage to the charming but feckless Irishman who loved her, but who was perhaps also after her money.

Relationships are central to this novel: Kate and Dermot, Kate and Charlie, Louisa and Father Blizzard, Tom and Ignazia, Tom and his grandfather, even Dermot and his mother. For all Ethel says ‘it’s an age of illimitable scope and possibility’ it seems it really is love, in whichever form, that makes the world go round. Growing up at whatever age brings its own set of problems.

Raw emotions need time to heal and some remedies work more slowly than others. There is only one certainty in life and there are no rules about dealing with it when it comes

.It is Taylor’s subtlety which is so powerful. Emotions are simmering and understated. Kate is loyal, more so than Dermot, it seems, but Kate’s old friend Charles, when he and his daughter come to stay, notices far more than even Kate has acknowledged. What is said is not always what is thought and there are plenty of instances of wry humour and dry wit in Taylor’s astute observations of human nature. It’s not just the reader who has a keen eye for all that’s going on, either, as the characters seem to keep a beady eye on each other, too.

The conversations between Ethel and her friend Gertrude with whom she’d been ‘in Holloway Prison’ (who knows why) leave much unsaid and provide more humour as the reader reaches their own conclusions about matters in hand.

The narrative covers the events of one summer. It is a slow burn and the tragic drama at the end is a shock, yet such awful things do happen in life and those who are left must find a way to cope. Raw emotions need time to heal and some remedies work more slowly than others. There is only one certainty in life and there are no rules about dealing with it when it comes.

Several themes are explored, not least love and longing, honesty and lies, grief and guilt. Just as Louisa and Tom navigate their youth, so, too, the older characters find themselves navigating adulthood. Understated but highly satisfactory.


In a Summer Season is published by Virago Press