The Summer Demands - Hardcover

Shapiro, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1948226308 ISBN 13: 9781948226301

Publisher: Catapult, 2019

Synopsis

"A sun-saturated tale of love and longing. . . Smart, funny, nuanced and seductive." ―The Chicago Tribune

Named one of the best books of the summer by O: The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, The Chicago Tribune, BBC Culture, NYLON and more

On the verge of her fortieth birthday and shaken by a recent miscarriage, Emily inherits an abandoned summer camp in Massachusetts. She and her husband move onto the property and make grand plans to revitalize the land. But they soon discover that their inheritance includes an unexpected guest. On a walk through the old campgrounds she once frequented as a girl, Emily finds, living undetected in one of the cabins, a magnetic twenty-two-year-old named Stella.

As the two women begin spending time together―talking and drinking, swimming in the lake, watching seductive French films through long afternoons―Emily finds herself playing at performing various roles relative
to Stella: friend, mother, lover. Each encounter they share promises to bring Emily a little closer to an understanding of her own identity, but it also puts her marriage and future at risk. How much does she really know about Stella? Why is Stella here, and what does she want, and what might she take with her, if and when she leaves?

Taking place over a single summer in a landscape that refuses to be tamed, The Summer Demands is a beautiful, quietly startling exploration of the sting of seduction, of unspoken female rage, and of how desire and ambition shift over time. It advances Deborah Shapiro’s place as one of America’s most captivating writers―a novelist who “adroitly conveys women’s complicated intimacy” (The New York Times Book Review).

About this title

Review:

Praise for The Summer Demands
A Midwest Independent Booksellers Association Midwest Connections Pick

"Shapiro’s second novel is a blistering profusion of desire and longing, revealing the undercurrents between our younger and older selves." ―O, The Oprah Magazine

"Come for the plot, but honestly, stay for the gorgeous writing." ―Mehera Bonner, Cosmopolitan

"Smart, funny, nuanced and seductive . . . A gorgeously written story of late youth and early middle age, the novel makes the delicate argument that maybe a person can come of age at any age―that maybe everyone is always coming of age all the time." ―Kathleen Rooney, Chicago Tribune

"A sun-saturated tale of love and longing . . . Chicago-based author Shapiro has a knack for crafting deeply human characters and portraying complex relationships between women." ―Chicago Tribune

"This is a slow and sultry novel that feels like summer itself . . . Shapiro creates a cinematic portrait of desire and ambition." ―Sarah Cassavant, Subtext Books, Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)

"'Summer, green and still and slightly grainy.' Those seven words instantly transport you into the haze of this book, in which Emily feels like the summer of her life is disappearing, like her days of fertility and growth are over . . . It's in this tenuous state that she moves with her husband to an abandoned summer camp, where she meets 22-year-old Stella . . . The two have a magnetic, sparking connection, which makes clear the ways in which the intimate relationships between women can bring up palpable feelings of desire, envy, and liberation." ―Kristin Iverson, NYLON

"Shapiro writes with painful intuition. And she’s especially adept at parsing the dynamics of social gatherings, where the conversation exists on two levels, the stated and the much more treacherous unstated." ―Brian Hieggelke, Newcity Lit

"Does not disappoint . . . With beautiful prose and sultry passages that see the passing of summer days on a secluded lake and in front of a bonfire, Shapiro has woven a tale of nostalgia and longing complete with deep introspection and desire for both the past and the future." ―Sara Cutaia, Chicago Review of Books

"The point of summer is to be free of demands, but in Shapiro’s engrossing, seductive sophomore novel, the emotional demands prove to have a ferocious power . . . Shapiro keys into the vulnerabilities of the older woman and in the dynamic between the pair, and in this overgrown, wild landscape, she has written a suspenseful, provocative novel." ―The National Book Review

"Drawing from Emily’s memory, her grief, her attraction to Stella, and her confusion about her marriage, Shapiro shapes a mysterious and evocative novel." ―Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture

"Perfectly renders the arc of a summer affair." ―Publishers Weekly

“Building the novel around just a handful of characters gives it the compression of a play and allows Shapiro (Sun in Your Eyes, 2016) to focus on subtle shifts in relationships." ―Booklist

"Emily is a sympathetic protagonist, a woman who is beginning to feel doors closing in her life even though she doesn't feel like an 'adult.' Stella is no less captivating, embodying youthful freedom and vulnerability. Together, they make for an electrifying duo, and the strange and blurred relationship that emerges between them is charged to the point of creating an edge-of-your-seat tension . . . The emotional connection between the two women is captivating and complex." ―Kirkus Reviews

"The Summer Demands is my favorite kind of novel, filled with captivating, imperfect characters who in one moment make me laugh out loud, and in the next pierce my heart. Rich, immersive, and so beautifully written―I couldn’t put it down.” ―Aryn Kyle, author of The God of Animals

"The Summer Demands is an ethereal and poetic story of the encounter between a girl teetering on the brink of adulthood and a woman looking back with longing on her bygone youth. Taking place over that most romantic of seasons, summer, Shapiro's brilliant novel is a beautiful and searching study of desire and the irretrievable land of the past." ―Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora

"The Summer Demands is a lushly woven tapestry of desire―for intimacy, for danger, for the unctuous past, for the impossible future. Shapiro's sharp, beguiling prose will have you feeling like you're falling in love for the first time, attuned to the selves we usually secret away. This is a coming-of-age novel in double, a woman's grief and rage mirrored in a girl's vulnerability and heartbreak, deepened by a shared sense that they can rewrite their lives. For summer camp alums or anyone who's felt intoxicated by August fireflies, lake-wet hair, and translucent screen doors that slam, The Summer Demands is an absolute seduction." ―Aja Gabel, author of The Ensemble

"Shapiro's The Summer Demands is sultry, shrewd, unnerving, and simply magnetic. I was hooked from beginning to end." ―Rebecca Kauffman, author of The Gunners

About the Author:

DEBORAH SHAPIRO was born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Sight Unseen, Tin House, and elsewhere. Her first novel, The Sun in Your Eyes, was selected as an Editors’ Choice by The New York Times Book Review, as well as one of the season’s best reads by Harper’s Bazaar, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and Vulture, among other publications. She lives with her husband and son in Chicago.

About this edition

• Publisher: Catapult
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1948226308
• ISBN 13: 9781948226301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224