The Summer Friend
A Memoir
Published on 13. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-0-593-46648-3 (ISBN)
Description
Alive with the intoxicating magic of summer in New England, former editor of the New York Times Book Review Charles McGrath’s evocative memoir looks back at that sun-soaked season, at family, youth, and a singular bond made at a time when he thought he was beyond making friends.
“Sun-drenched and deeply touching.” —The New York Times
“Positively aches with beauty and loss.” —Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls
It was early evening and a new acquaintance had come to retrieve his daughter from a play date. Instead of driving up in a minivan, he arrived by water, tacking his sailboat smartly across a squiggly channel in the marsh, throwing a rope overboard, and zipping back home, his gleeful daughter riding in the wake. Who knew you could do such a thing? And how could you resist befriending a man such as that?
Over the course of this rich memoir, McGrath recalls with a gimlet eye the pleasures of summers past: amateur lobstering, 9-hole golf, family costume charades, bridge-jumping, and a friendship forged between two men from different backgrounds who came together late in life.
Recounting the vagaries of summer with such precision and warmth-- peeling long strips of sunburnt skin from your shoulder as if “shuffling off your own cocoon,” the outdoor shower curtain blowing open in the breeze, an M80 firework in the mailbox--The Summer Friend is simultaneously a potent evocation of the rhythms and rituals of summer and a stirring remembrance of a friend found and then lost.
“Sun-drenched and deeply touching.” —The New York Times
“Positively aches with beauty and loss.” —Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls
It was early evening and a new acquaintance had come to retrieve his daughter from a play date. Instead of driving up in a minivan, he arrived by water, tacking his sailboat smartly across a squiggly channel in the marsh, throwing a rope overboard, and zipping back home, his gleeful daughter riding in the wake. Who knew you could do such a thing? And how could you resist befriending a man such as that?
Over the course of this rich memoir, McGrath recalls with a gimlet eye the pleasures of summers past: amateur lobstering, 9-hole golf, family costume charades, bridge-jumping, and a friendship forged between two men from different backgrounds who came together late in life.
Recounting the vagaries of summer with such precision and warmth-- peeling long strips of sunburnt skin from your shoulder as if “shuffling off your own cocoon,” the outdoor shower curtain blowing open in the breeze, an M80 firework in the mailbox--The Summer Friend is simultaneously a potent evocation of the rhythms and rituals of summer and a stirring remembrance of a friend found and then lost.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
276 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-593-46648-3 (9780593466483)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Charles McGrath, known as Chip, is the former deputy editor of The New Yorker and a former editor of The New York Times Book Review, and is currently a contributing writer at The Times. He is the editor of Golf Stories, two Library of America volumes, and an occasional contributor to Golf Digest. He lives with his wife in northern New Jersey and southeastern Massachusetts.