Customer Reviews

The Dead of Summer

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I picked up The Dead of Summer at the library in the 'just out' section because I couldn't find the book I originally came for. A quick read, the book follows a group of three outcast early teens over a hot London summer, and dives into their relationships through the first person account of the main character, an odd girl named Anita Naidu. Anita is recalling the summer seven years later to a psychiatrist; because the summer ended with her being the sole survivor of a heinous crime that took the lives of her friends and made national headlines. That is not a spoiler, it is set up in the first few pages.

The reader doesn't know what or who was responsible for the crime until the end of the book, and though the author makes a couple attempts to throw us off course, she pretty much gives it away long before she should have. I also found the psychiatrist connection clumsy, and probably not really necessary.

What I did find interesting was the relationships these kids had with one another, and how they drew strength from each others dysfunctions. It also did a good job with the angst that is so prevalent at this age, particularly for those that are considered outsiders.

I thought The Dead of Summer showed promise, and will be interested to see how Camilla Way matures with her next work.

Review originally published in the Hipster Book Club, August 2008

In Camilla Way's debut novel, a trio of teenage social misfits spends a sweltering British summer exploring the wharf area of southeast London. The Dead of Summer is narrated by thirteen-year-old Anita, a motherless child who is the sole witness and survivor to a bloody crime at the end of the summer. As the book opens, the reader is told, "By the end of that summer three of us were dead. But you already knew that. Tell me, does your pulse quicken when you see the headlines?"

Anita Naidu is the daughter of a Pakistani father and a British mother. After her mum passes away, her father turns to endless alcohol-fueled hours in front of the television, her older sisters busy themselves dressing up and going out to meet men, and her older brother aligns himself with criminal elements that bring in easy cash and flashy material possessions. Anita, bullied as a "skint Paki" at school, spends solitary hours missing her mother and suffering isolation from her extended family, who never supported the mixed marriage.

Searching for her place in the world while fighting her own psychological pain, Anita falls in step with two other loners at school: the overweight, socially awkward Denis and the skinny, violent Kyle. Kyle is the de facto group leader, but he does not actively seek a leadership role. Rather, as the most daring, reckless member of the group, he is always concocting new spur-of-the-moment adventures as his friends scramble to catch up. Kyle dreams of finding an entrance to Greenwich's abandoned salt mines and living in an alternate cave world, away from the painful existence of life in London's slums. In his more deviant moments, Kyle's adventures graduate from youthful exploration fantasies to cruel sadism.

Way's prose is taut and intimate. The brutal reality of life near the wharf is evident at every turn. Bums are tormented, bullies viciously stalk the misfits, and the children play in abandoned junk yards and polluted rivers. The world of these students is devoid of parents, money, and opportunity. Anita discovers that Kyle lost his sister under mysterious circumstances a year ago, so she spends the summer alternately trying to impress her friend with her cave-sleuthing skills and investigating his background. From the hushed discussions of adults, it is apparent that Kyle's sister was abducted, but her body was never found.

Anita is both enamored of Kyle and scared by him. She suspects there is more to the story of his sister's abduction, especially after finding mementos of the little girl's existence in her friend's possession. Both Anita and the reader are desperately curious to learn more about this sullen, volatile boy who shuns nearly all human contact. Kyle's gregarious grandfather is the only kindly adult Anita's life, yet his own grandson recoils at spending time around him. Kyle's mother is a timid ghost of a woman who ventures out to make child-like observations before returning to seclusion on upper floor of her home.

As this psychological thriller unfolds, Anita uncovers several secrets in Kyle's family history. She also reveals her own secrets which were buried when her mother died. Author Camilla Way ventures inside the mind of teenage criminals with this latest literary fiction offering. The plot develops naturally and quickly; the author does not waste words dragging out her twists and turns. The reader is told to expect a bloody, headline-grabbing crime from the novel's opening, but Camilla Way manages to evoke a truly frightening picture of the criminal psyche in her teenaged characters.

This was a short and still surprising story. I really enjoyed it. The characters were interesting and the suspense was well done. It was entertaining with a solid ending. The writing was clean and vivid. I would certainly read another book by her!

Camilla Way sure is one scary lady! She is also one hell of a writer. It is hard to believe that "The Dead of Summer" is a début novel, so polished and accomplished is it. The book is comparatively short (just 230 pages) and doesn't take long to read. But it is by no means a light or an insubstantial read. It is a book that takes you by the throat on page one and just does not let go until you've finished it. Or perhaps, I should say, until it has finished with you. It almost leaves you with bruises to show for it, too!

To say that this book's subject matter is dark is to fall well short of the matter. This book is not so much a thriller as a shocker; it inhabits some very disturbing territory indeed. But Camilla Way demonstrates an absolute mastery of her art: she has an elegant economy of phrase; a rare skill for revealing just the right snippet at just the right time; a brilliance with words; an amazing attention to detail. These all combine to create a sense of authority which is so utterly convincing that at times it is easy to forget this story is only fiction. And for all of its horrors and at time repulsiveness, one cannot help but be drawn in to this story. Like a rabbit staring into the oncoming headlamps.

Camilla Way's prose, both in this novel and in her subsequent "Little Bird", has an eloquence and an almost poetic quality which contrasts starkly with the everyday subject matter she applies it to. This somehow points up and brings into sharper focus the seediness of the things she describes in a way that makes even the totally mundane sound wondrous and altogether something to marvel at. In "The Dead of Summer" she also demonstrates a superb ability to drip-feed her readers with just sufficient clues (provided they pay attention) to satisfy their desperation to learn more, while keeping everyone guessing right to the very end. She knows exactly how much to hold back and just how to deliver for maximum impact when it comes.

So you can't say you haven't been warned. But strongly recommended regardless.

Seven years after the events that stun London, the only survivor of a heinous crime finally tells her story to a patient psychologist. The labyrinthine caves of wartime London serve as a metaphor for twisted childhood secrets, the terrors of loneliness and the desperation for connection. When Anita Naidu moves to Greenwich with her family after her mother's death, her world is forever off kilter, mourning the woman who held their half-English-half-Pakistani family together. At thirteen, Anita is barely visible to the others, teen-aged twin sisters, a brother, only her sad-eyed father a temporary link to the past. But when a blowsy, interfering neighbor sets her sights on the lonely widower, even that small comfort is taken from Anita.

On her first day at a new school just before summer vacation, Anita is seated by an outcast, the overweight, dark-skinned Denis, whom everyone avoids. Unperturbed, Anita adjusts, her isolated existence barely touched by this strange boy who answers every question with an inane reply. It is Denis's only friend who captures Anita's interest, Kyle Kite, who lives across the street from Anita's family. Kyle's home is in sharp contrast to Anita's disheveled, trash-strewn house, 33 Myles shrouded in mystery, the windows always dark, forbidding. Ever since the disappearance of Kyle's little sister, Katie, the boy has been a person of interest to the local authorities, a misfit whose mother never leaves the house, Kyle's grandfather serving as buffer between the family and the world.

Why Denis and Kyle are friends is a mystery Anita never solves; she is content to be allowed to walk the streets with them, exploring junkyards and the slimy banks of the Thames in search of the sand caves used as shelters during the war. Kyle is obsessed with finding the caves, Denis and Anita his willing companions as the days of summer pass slowly by, heat weighing oppressively upon them. Fascinated with Kyle, his eyes "a pale, flat grey, the colour of lampposts and gutters", Anita longs to learn his secrets, the strange dissociation that that comes over him at times, the fate of his sister, the enigmatic mother who hides behind the confines of her home. Bit by bit, Anita pieces together Kyle's story, yearning to forge a bond that will free her from the pervasive emptiness that fills her: "I'd never had something of my own before; I'd never had my own secret." Anita craves otherness, to know what others feel and think. It is this urgency for connection that draws her to the likes of Denis and Kyle, Denis because he is accommodating, malleable, Kyle because he is dangerous.

The author plumbs below the surface of childhood concerns, digging for the unholy truth, exposing the dark side of a society that expects its children to survive their tragedies, no matter how devastating, to hide the reality of pain in platitudes and amusement parks, not to speak of terrible secrets they are not meant to know. For all the bright promise of a child's world, Way reminds us that terror thrives on innocence, sewing seeds bred in dank places, only to sprout unexpectedly in deceptive bloom, deadly nightshade in a field of wild grass. Luan Gaines/ 2007.

I guess I'm a gullible reader because I didn't pick up on any of the clues about the ending. It was hard to put down once I started reading. But, I didn't want to keep reading because it was so creepy.

I have to wonder how an author can come up with such disturbing characters.

I agree completely with the reviewers who applaud Camilla Way's ability to create imagery and atmosphere. (see Amazon.co.uk) She will be an author to watch.

That said, although I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I was misled by the concept of a "twist" that everyone talks about. What twist? Since the nature of the conclusion seemed obvious at the beginning and throughout, I read the book thinking I must be wrong. Appropriately, you could never be completely sure of how the story would end, but I doubt the author intended that it be seen as a "twist."

For me, the enjoyment was in a well-told story that incorporated fully realized characters and place, with excellent pace and a pervasive creepy electricity.

P.S. If you liked this book, try "Engleby" by Sebastian Faulks.

If you look at reviews on amazon.co.uk, people talk about a twist. I plowed through this book very certain I knew whodunit. I was right. I was rather disappointed, but very grateful I managed not to pay full price. It has the sound of a young person...not very female which led me to think the twist might be something different. It was not. All in all rather disappointing.