The Summer Without Men (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Following a breakdown after her husband asks for a 'pause' in their 30-year marriage, Mia (an award-winning poet) spends the summer in her old Minnesota town, close to her mother's Rolling Meadows retirement home. The initially confused and fragile Mia ponders her situation, while she also observes the generations behind and before her. She is hired to teach poetry to a group of teenage girls at the local Arts Guild. The group (The Coven) develop some disturbing behaviour, despite their commitment to the poetry classes. Mia's mother's 'Five Swans' are also literary and creative, despite their age-related limitations of body. Mia befriends a neighbour, a young married woman with two small children and a difficult husband. She also indulges in a correspondence with her "annonymous tormentor," an emailer who calls himself 'Mr. Nobody.'

However interested we are in these characters, we are kept at a distance from them by Mia's constant musings. Despite the book's title Mia's mind is full of references to learned men whom she quotes or whose ideas come to her mind as she observes her life: Kant, Spinoza, Hume, Plutarch, Diogenes, Becket, Ibsen, Derrida, Winnicott, Vygotsky et al, while Freud and Kierkegaard feature several times. There are references to films, Cary Grant, Antigone, Jane Austen, ruminations on neuroscience and the nature of orgasm, the two Columbuses, the nature of bullying. Siri Hustvedt seems to be in experimental mode with form, there are letters, diary entries, poems, a few drawings and a curiously intrusive though playful narrator who suddelny steps aside to address 'Dear Reader.' The learning does not weigh heavily within the novel, but the cumulative effect made me wish the author had kept a stronger focus on the plot and sub-plot. But you could argue that the apparent interruptions and frequent changes from description to contemplation are very much the plot, because the drama is in Mia's head - what will be her conclusion about married life and her own future?

I quite enjoyed the book, and I think that established fans of Siri Hustvedt will be interested to see what she has done here, but if you are new to this author, I would recommend one of her previous novels as a first read.

I devoured this book in one sitting over the course of an afternoon.It's a subtle blend of stream of consciousness writing combined with a realistic narrative.The plotline is not unusual:husband leaves wife for younger woman;woman retreats back to her family of origin.What really lifts this out of the ordinary is the inner dialogue of the wife,deserted by her husband of 30 years.She's a poet who's aware of her relative perspective on what reality is.That's at head level.We also feel her devastation quite viscerally.The setting moves to the residential home where her 90 year old mother now lives amongst several other aged women.Their life stories are told without sentimentality but with empathy.At the same time,she gets to know a younger woman with 2 small children and becomes an important part of their life.As the title indiates,it's a novel about women;always tender,sometimes raw.
Highly recommended.

I read What I Lovedby Hustvedt last year so was really excited to read her new book and I think it is even better. Hustvedt tells Mia's pain of being wronged by her husband in an excellent manner and she steers away from the clichéd approach of turning all men into the anti-heroes of the book nor does she have another male character sweep in to mend her heroine's pain. How Hustvedt does introduce males into the story is immensely creative and clever, by keeping them on the periphery of the story she further emphasises the importance of her key characters and the relationships that they share. Hurstvedt creates an excellent account of the female support that women can give and receive from each other when they have been hurt by their partner. Any women who has ever been in a position akin to Mia's will recognise the feeling of being pulled into a female only circle and being helped to mend as you learn your problem is not new or unique. Hustvedt captures the characters emotions and personalities so clearly that you feel a very strong connection to them - as in What I Loved. The Summer Without Men is excellently written and flows fantastically. Although I have said that women will relate to the main character's story this should not put men off reading this book. The Summer Without Men is in no way an attack on men rather a study of the relationships that women develop together through different stages in life and whilst the men may not be physically present it is their interactions with women that much of the storyline grows from. This book is so multi-layered and brilliantly written that it will leave you thinking about it for days.