The admired, bestselling author of The Danger Tree joins Knopf Canada with his masterful first work of fiction: a haunting novel about love experienced and love remembered that is also an unforgettable celebration and evocation of the brief beauty of a northern summer.
Summer Gone is about that moment when everything stops. Like skilled canoeists, we briefly hold a perfect balance - poised between innocence and experience, life and death, discovery and loss, the promise of spring and the sadness of autumn - and we believe, foolishly, that those perfect days will last forever.
Set among the islands and lakes of "cottage country", this major first novel from one of Canada's premier writers explores the stories of three generations of lost summers. But Summer Gone is primarily the story of a divorced father and a young son separated by the silence of estrangement, and how during one extraordinary night on an ill-fated canoe trip the silence is broken. Yet, as the novel unfolds, tragedy looms over father and son in ways they could never have imagined, and leads to the book's gripping and startling conclusion.
Summer Gone is an exquisite novel, beautifully written and powerfully told.
David Macfarlane has won 6 gold National Magazine Awards as well as the Sovereign Award for Magazine Journalism and the Author's Award for Magazine Writing; he is also a national columnist for The Globe and Mail. His memoir of Newfoundland, The Danger Tree, won the Canadian Author's Association Award for Non-Fiction in l992. He lives in Toronto.
Show moreThe admired, bestselling author of The Danger Tree joins Knopf Canada with his masterful first work of fiction: a haunting novel about love experienced and love remembered that is also an unforgettable celebration and evocation of the brief beauty of a northern summer.
Summer Gone is about that moment when everything stops. Like skilled canoeists, we briefly hold a perfect balance - poised between innocence and experience, life and death, discovery and loss, the promise of spring and the sadness of autumn - and we believe, foolishly, that those perfect days will last forever.
Set among the islands and lakes of "cottage country", this major first novel from one of Canada's premier writers explores the stories of three generations of lost summers. But Summer Gone is primarily the story of a divorced father and a young son separated by the silence of estrangement, and how during one extraordinary night on an ill-fated canoe trip the silence is broken. Yet, as the novel unfolds, tragedy looms over father and son in ways they could never have imagined, and leads to the book's gripping and startling conclusion.
Summer Gone is an exquisite novel, beautifully written and powerfully told.
David Macfarlane has won 6 gold National Magazine Awards as well as the Sovereign Award for Magazine Journalism and the Author's Award for Magazine Writing; he is also a national columnist for The Globe and Mail. His memoir of Newfoundland, The Danger Tree, won the Canadian Author's Association Award for Non-Fiction in l992. He lives in Toronto.
Show moreDAVID MACFARLANE was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1952. His first book, The Danger Tree, won the Canadian Authors' Association award for non-fiction. His debut novel, Summer Gone, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and won the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. He has won numerous National Magazine Awards and a National Newspaper Award. His play, Fishwrap, was produced at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre in 2005, and his most recent novel, The Figures of Beauty, was published in 2013. He lives in Toronto.
"Summer Gone is a homage to our most excruciating and beautiful
memories. Within this novel is the marvellous height of summer,
perfect and fleeting, a place and time we can never get enough of."
—The Globe and Mail
"Summer Gone is a novel about telling stories—one that merges
fiction and truth, past and present, memory and action, into one
dangerous and beautiful current." —The Calgary Herald
"David Macfarlane rises to the challenge of a first novel . . .
[he] gets degree of difficulty points . . . [and] it works. Mr.
Macfarlane writes beautifully and gets his story across powerfully
. . . a rewarding reading experience." —The Ottawa Citizen
"Summer Gone is a summer vacation in the north woods, with all that
implies to you the reader." —Winnipeg Free Press
"As with most good fiction, the real joy of Macfarlane’s book is in
the quietly choreographed moments where the author’s insights into
people mesh with his undeniable skill with language." —Eye
"Summer Gone is a polished, well-crafted novel that dwells on
fresh, powerful themes." —The Annex Gleaner
"Summer Gone is a triumph of voice, storytelling and slippery
connections." —The Vancouver Sun
Praise for The Danger Tree:
"I've just discovered The Danger Tree and am stunned. It is so
good. About the best prose to ever come out of this country, for my
money." —Alice Munro
"[David Macfarlane’s] Newfoundland memoir, The Danger Tree, is
easily one of the most readable and beautifully written books to
emerge from Canada in recent years." —Mordecai Richler, Saturday
Night
"The Danger Tree is a masterpiece. David Macfarlane is an architect
of the past, building extraordinary memory mansions in which the
reader feels eerily at home." —Alberto Manguel
Macfarlane, a columnist for the Toronto Globe & Mail, earned a measure of admiration for Come from Away, which won the Canadian Authors' Association Award for nonfiction in 1992. This is his first venture into fiction. The gist of the tale is a bit hard to summarize, but it has to do with the editor of a Canadian monthly magazine recalling past summers and winters as he and his young son canoe through Ontario's northern lakes. Macfarlane skillfully evokes an atmosphere at once somber and slightly ominous, but the drama, instead of flowing smoothly, jerks and snaps from past to present, scene to scene, and person to person so that even an earnest attendant finds it difficult at times to follow. Setting and mores are described with an expert hand, but many readers are likely to be puzzled by the often irritatingly abrupt transitions, the curious mixture of present and past, and the intertwining of reality, dreaming, and the twilight in between. Of limited appeal; for collections of Canadian fiction.--A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
"Summer Gone is a homage to our most excruciating and
beautiful memories. Within this novel is the marvellous height of
summer, perfect and fleeting, a place and time we can never get
enough of." -The Globe and Mail
"Summer Gone is a novel about telling stories-one that
merges fiction and truth, past and present, memory and action, into
one dangerous and beautiful current." -The Calgary Herald
"David Macfarlane rises to the challenge of a first novel
. . . [he] gets degree of difficulty points . . . [and] it works.
Mr. Macfarlane writes beautifully and gets his story across
powerfully . . . a rewarding reading experience." -The Ottawa
Citizen
"Summer Gone is a summer vacation in the north woods, with
all that implies to you the reader." -Winnipeg Free Press
"As with most good fiction, the real joy of Macfarlane's
book is in the quietly choreographed moments where the author's
insights into people mesh with his undeniable skill with language."
-Eye
"Summer Gone is a polished, well-crafted novel
that dwells on fresh, powerful themes." -The Annex Gleaner
"Summer Gone is a triumph of voice, storytelling and
slippery connections." -The Vancouver Sun
Praise for The Danger Tree:
"I've just discovered The Danger Tree and am stunned. It is
so good. About the best prose to ever come out of this country, for
my money." -Alice Munro
"[David Macfarlane's] Newfoundland memoir, The Danger Tree,
is easily one of the most readable and beautifully written books to
emerge from Canada in recent years." -Mordecai Richler, Saturday
Night
"The Danger Tree is a masterpiece. David Macfarlane is an
architect of the past, building extraordinary memory mansions in
which the reader feels eerily at home." -Alberto Manguel
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