Heat Wave : A Novel [Hardcover]

Penelope Lively (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

Explores the relationships among Pauline, a middle-aged divorce+a7e living near London, her daughter Teresa, and her son-in-law, Maurice, who begins drifting into infidelity. By the author of the Booker Prize-winning Moon Tiger. 15,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The weather is blistering but the emotions are chilly in this intimate, elegant novel set in the British countryside during a summer of record heat. A mother is watching the end of her daughter's marriage while confronting her own simmering anger over the infidelity of her own departed husband, years before. Penelope Lively's intense but muted style mirrors the detached anguish of her characters, who are groping toward their true feelings.

From Publishers Weekly

Lively (Moon Tiger) considers the bliss of romantic love, and its frequently tragic disillusionment, in her 11th satisfying novel, which provides further evidence of her ability to build a fascinating plot from minutely observed character. Ensconced in World's End, her summer cottage in England's rural midlands, Pauline Carter, 55, is copyediting an allegory of romantic love while trying not to observe that the seemingly idyllic marriage of her daughter, Teresa, to ambitious professor/writer Maurice, is treading rough water. Trusting, vulnerable Teresa and her baby son share the premises with her mother, while charming Maurice comes and goes. Pauline soon realizes that he is involved in an affair with his editor's girlfriend, conducted when the couple visits World's End on weekends and during Maurice's sudden, unexplained midweek trips to London. To Pauline, the situation carries the echoes of her own betrayal by Teresa's father, Harry, also in his time an unscrupulous professor/lover on the make. Remembering the wasted years of her life before she had the courage to divorce Harry, Pauline is terrified that Teresa is doomed to repeat her history. Events in the novel's last few pages prove otherwise, adding a final shock to the steadily mounting, clearly foreshadowed tension. Lively is most interested in the difference between appearance and reality?between the apparently tranquil countryside and nature's casual mayhem, between the exterior of the stone cottage and its state-of-the-art interior technology, between Maurice's beguiling reassurances and his cynical adultery. Acutely aware of ironies and misperceptions, she is also a master of descriptive detail, evoking the landscape with techniques akin to an Impressionist painter's. Most importantly, she creates a convincing picture of obsessive sexual love tainted by jealousy and misery, and of the kind of maternal love that carries its own implacable mandates.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 215 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1St Edition edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060174765
• ISBN-13: 978-0060174767
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #788,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Summer At World's End, July 14, 2004

By 

prisrob "pris," (New England USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Heat Wave: A Novel (Paperback)

It is a May day at World's End. The beginning of a long, hot summer in Pauline Carter's greystone cottage in England, about two hours outside of London. Pauline is copyediting an allegory of romantic love. Her daughter, Theresa and her husband Maurice, and their son, Luke live in the second half of the cottage.

Maurice is a professor and writer and is busy writing a travel journal of local places. He often invites his editor and his girlfriend down for the weekend to help with each chapter. The issue is Maurice's infatuation with his editor's girlfriend. Oh, what memories this stirs in Pauline's heart. She fears for Theresa, who is so in love with her husband.

Years ago, Pauline fell in love with Harry, a professor and bon vivant. Pauline and Harry married much to everyone's surprise. Harry was known as a lady's man and not the type to marry. And, in due course, Theresa was born to Pauline and Harry. Harry was not much of a father, he loved Theresa but was not involved in her life. Much the same could be said of Maurice and his behavior with Luke. Pauline is so afraid for Theresa, she could sense imminent betrayal, and no one was speaking of it. Pauline was much respected by Maurice, but he offered no excuses nor did he feel he needed to excuse his behavior. This type of thing just happpened.

Penelope Lively has given us an elegant portrayal of fragile family dynamics that have already been greatly affected by adultery. Pauline will do anything to assist her daughter, and she opens her heart to Theresa. She discusses her own life with Theresa's father, and the fact that she should have left him long before she did. However, Theresa is not ready to discuss anything about her husband with Pauline at this time- denial is the name of the game. Pauline must take little steps with her daughter and support her as best she can.

This is once again, a book not to be put down. Penelope Lively has a habit of writing this kind of novel. The conclusion adds a form of the unusual and unexpected. I was not ready for this story to end, but the author knows best. We realize that the anxiety and suspicion we have felt has led to frustration, and now we can look at the situation with clearer eyes. This is Penelope Lively's eleventh novel, and I must read each one. She is an author unlike any other. Each book is better than the last, but how can that be? A witty and intelligent author with every novel a number one in my book! prisrob

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heat Wave is no formulaic book about the dissolution of a ma, April 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Heat Wave: A Novel (Paperback)

Heat Wave is no formulaic book about the dissolution of a marriage. When I picked up this novel, I wasn't sure if I would like it...I'm not a fan of books about "relationships". A few pages into Heat Wave I realized that this book was about relationships, but not in the ordinary sense. In Heat Wave, Penelope Lively examines relationships without dredging up pop-psychology or pathos. I particularly enjoyed the way she described the baby Luke's relationship with his ever expanding world. I had not thought that a baby could be such an interesting character.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Heat Wave Is Chilling, January 8, 2003

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heat Wave: A Novel (Paperback)

I had not read a Penelope Lively novel in so long, I had forgotten how brilliant a writer she can be. Her talent is very evident in "Heat Wave." A deceptively simple story with very dark undertones, the book is a masterpiece of "novel-as-understatement."

Long-divorced Pauline, a freelance book editor, is spending the summer at her country cottage, World's End, with her daughter Theresa and her family--husband Morris, baby son Luke. Theresa and family occupy one half of the duplex, and Pauline the other. It's an agreeable relationship that allows each household the privacy it needs as well as the companionship, as the entire family gathers for dinner and other outings.

All is seemingly serene in both houses, but as the weather turns hotter in an unusually strong heat wave, the civilized overlay between the adults gradually melts away. For in an almost obscene coincidence, as far as Pauline is concerned, her daughter's husband Morris is engaged in an affair that is destined to break Theresa's heart--the same as Pauline's was broken many years ago by her husband (and Theresa's father) Harry.

The similarities between Morris and Harry are chilling. Both are authors. Both are self-centered, charming, and careless of their women. Both have affairs with young women who are "editorial groupies." As Pauline watches Morris become increasingly involved with Carol, the vacuous girlfriend of his own editor, Jack, she begins to relive (and re-feel) the horrible emotions she encountered as a young wife betrayed by her own cheating husband. The novel moves effortlessly between the present and the past as Pauline watches her own daughter's betrayal and is helpless to stop it. As her emotions churn, so does the weather. Only Luke, the innocent baby, is unaware of the terrible events unfolding all around him, and only Luke is unscathed in the end.

Similar in tone to the works of Joanna Trollope, "Heat Wave" is just about as good as it gets. It is beautifully written, spare and to-the-point, and it ensnares the reader completely in its seemingly simple story of love and loss.