The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin

A question for my fellow book lovers:  When you’ve just finished a truly moving book do you — like me, close the book, gaze lovingly at its cover, then exhale and hug it to your chest for a few moments?  No?  Really?  OK it must be my own little book barmy quackery.

The Summer Guest was just such a hug-worthy book.  An exceptionally beautiful novel which moved me to tears, laughter, and pure delight.  The characters and setting were so real  — so authentic, that when I’d lay the book aside — I had to take a moment to clear my head in order to resume my real life.

I’ve had this lovely book on my shelves for years (this is the 2005 paperback edition) and during a recent grey and foggy weekend I roamed my shelves looking for something “summery” to read…and chose this.

(Side note:  This is how I justify my not-yet-read book hoarding collection — it is a true pleasure to wake up in my favorite PJ’s and with tea cup in hand, browse through my very own bookshelves and pick out just the perfect book for my mood and the San Francisco weather.)

However, The Summer Guest is not a lightweight summer beach book. This is a complex story of a family over time, children and their parents, love and loss — all told simply and beautifully .

In Mr. Cronin’s spare but expansive novel we begin in 1947, aboard a train chugging through a snowy Maine night and end up in 1997 on a tranquil late-summer evening lake, aboard an old wooden rowboat. Included in between  —  the living, loving and loss of a family united by a remote Maine fishing camp with an expansive fish-rich lake – “lovely in its pure beauty of having been forgotten”. 

“the camp held a ninety-year lease from Maine Paper for two hundred acres rimming the lake to the north and west … I didn’t know exactly where the lines fell, but I didn’t have to.  It was so much land it didn’t matter.”

There are the obligatory rutted roads through the deep Maine woods to get to the camp, the idyllic rustic cabins, with fireplaces and creaky porches.  The days are filled with early morning coffee with the loons, the intricate symphony of fly fishing and home cooked evening meals in the communal dining room.  You can smell the pine trees, baked beans and wood smoke.

The title and the main story line refers to Harry  — a guest who has been coming to the camp for many years and is now an old and dying man.  Different characters narrate each chapter and tell the past and present story from their individual viewpoints.  So there’s also Jordan, a local loner who has become fishing guide and winter caretaker of the camp.  Then there are the long-time owners of the camp, Joe and Lucy who have an enviable inner strength and warmth.

Mr. Cronin knows the area and has rendered the voice of his story through dry and acerbic Maine eyes:

“He gave me a curt nod from the chin, the North Woods equivalent of a full body hug.”    and then this,

“this was an inbred town in northwest Maine where, as we said, half the people spoke French and the other half yelled.”

When Jordan, the local fishing guide takes out a group of big city lawyers, the author deftly captures the inevitable situation.

“By this point Bill had actually managed to get his fish under control and was thrashing around in the shallows, his rod hand held high over his head to keep the line tight while, with the other, he made unsuccessful, scooping lunges with his net. Done properly, this can be one of the most satisfyingly graceful moments in the sport, but in Bill’s case it was like watching a man trying to hail a taxi while simultaneously chasing a piece of blowing litter down the street.”

 Mr. Cronin has precisely penned the words to express emotions we have all felt — from mournful sections which wrap the reader into the characters’ brave sadness and loss – to the exquisite joy of first love…

“…the thought of Kate was suddenly woven like a thread through everything, all that had ever happened to me, the clean smell of the pines and the lake and the memory of my lonely winters, the very turning world we stood on.  They say that the moment your life appears before your eyes will be your last, but I’m here to say that it’s not so very different when you kiss a woman like Kate, whoever your Kate may be.”

The scene where the summer guests are dancing on the dock to Ella Fitzgerald is so beautifully told it will bring tears to your eyes. 

Justin Cronin paints a beautiful picture of this remote Maine camp where the summers of deep woods and deep lakes come alive on the pages — “enough silence to let you hear the planet spin or make you mad if you thought too long about it.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer called The Summer Guest — “A work of art, Justin Cronin has written a great American novel.” 

That captures it perfectly.  I can only add it’s a must read (and a must keep on my shelves) novel.  I highly recommend it.