The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me: A Novel - Softcover

Kingsbury, Suzanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743223047 ISBN 13: 9780743223041

Publisher: Scribner, 2003

Synopsis

Deserted by her mother and raised by her whiskey-drinking, gun-shooting father, Haley Ellyson hides two explosive secrets that both empower her and threaten to undermine everything she cherishes. Having already broken the heart of every boy in Houser Banks, Mississippi, Haley is engaged in a dangerous flirtation with her father's best friend when Fletcher Greel, the judge's son, comes home for the summer, fresh out of a New England prep school. Fletcher's friend Riley is in love with Crystal, a blues-singing black girl, and Fletcher falls instantly for Haley. The four soon become inseparable, but as summer wanes, local disapproval of Riley and Crystal's romance takes violent turns, and Haley's secrets surface to devastating results. A pitch-perfect first novel rich with unforgettable characters, mesmerizing prose, and smoldering sexual tension, The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me captures the exhilaration of first love and the consequences of rebellion in a place resistant to change.

About this title

Review:

The Hartford Courant The most vivid, drenched-in-place rendering of Mississippi isn't some long-lost but newly found William Faulkner story. It's a first novel by a lifelong New Englander, Suzanne Kingsbury. With lush, lovely language, Kingsbury evokes the sultry summer heat like someone who has lived there her whole life.

William Gay author of I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down Kingsbury's elegy to desire and redemption and the prices you ultimately pay for them catches the reader on the first page and continues to resonate in the mind long after the epilogue is finished. Kingsbury makes an auspicious arrival, and she isn't leaving anytime soon.

Orlando Sentinel A haunting first novel...captivating...Kingsbury's prose is measured and luminous.

From the Publisher:

In this sizzling Deep South debut novel, with echoes of Carson McCullers and Harper Lee, four young people come of age in small-town Mississippi where racial tension lies just below the surface – as does an unknown body in a shallow grave.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743223047
• ISBN 13: 9780743223041
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368