In this new novel by the author of The Women's Room and Her Mother's Daughter, a hugely successful, middle-aged writer of romance novels encounters the possibility of romantic love in her own life.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
In 1977, Marilyn French inspired a generation of feminists with The Women's Room. Twenty years later she still refuses to go quietly, play with the grandchildren, and prune the roses, as women of a certain advanced age are supposed to. Instead, she has written a romantic novel, and true to her youthful vigor, it is a subversive one. French joins Doris Lessing in believing that the libido can survive old age in women as in men. At the beginning of the novel, the heroine has cast aside her self-image as a desirable woman, as society expects; but then she meets a dashing editor in his 50s, and snap--she is consumed by erotic longing. She is able to analyze intelligently the whole disturbing situation with her knowing women friends, even while she enjoys a delicious summer of romance.
From Publishers Weekly
The passionate indignation and insight into women's lives that made French a household name in the 1970s, when The Women's Room issued a feminist manifesto, has dwindled to a few dim sparks here. French follows the daily summer routine and reminiscences of 60-ish Hermione Beldame, formerly Elsa Schutz, a wildly successful romance novelist who splits her time between her Fifth Avenue pad and a Sag Harbor house. Hermione is supposed to be a complex and sophisticated creature, but she comes across as self-absorbed and silly. The irony of her situation is lost on her: she writes about idealized romance and love but finds herself entangled in a ridiculous relationship with George Johnson, a dejected, potbellied newspaper editor from Louisville, whose volatile behavior veers between intense interest and bald rejection. Hermione convinces herself that she is in love with George because he is the opposite of a romance hero; actually, the guy is a drip and the romance takes place solely in Hermione's fantasies and awful articulations: "My heart leaped out of my body and flew to encompass him." While there is a certain poignancy in the dilemma of a worldly woman still yearning for her Prince Charming, the narrative comes alive only in the flashbacks to Hermione's youth in a poor household and her horrible marriage in the 1950s. But French tries the reader's patience before she gets to the gist of her message: that women of a certain age, raised on the "neurotic" myth of romantic love and still active with erotic desire, are doomed to sexually starved decades as they lose their attractiveness to men. A romance novel has, at the very least, the good manners not to take itself seriously, but the simplistic My Summer with George presents itself as witty and wise.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
My Summer With George,
By A Customer
This review is from: My Summer With George (Paperback)
Marilyn French has captured a reality that so many women feel but would never admit. If women can't relate to Hermione, it's because they're still young with all their options intact. I personally know three woman whose names could easily be inserted into this story as Hermione. Sure, nowadays we're all liberated and free and smart and have self-respect and money and all that stuff, but the need for love and the guaranteed loneliness that sometimes haunts us, especially when the options are narrowing, are a reality. There are things that never change in the human soul. Why Hermione was attracted to George (and her subsequent flight of fancy) is one of them. These things never change regardless of our disdain or dislike for them. And Marilyn French has written about it like no other writer has dared.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best books I've read these past years.,
By gulkaya@turk.net (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews
This review is from: My Summer with George (Hardcover)
It has been a great pleasure reading Ms.French's latest novel. The heroine's infatuation with George, the elusive "boyfriend" is narrated in such a fashion that one cannot help but feel all the frustrations Hermione goes through. Any woman over 40 will, I am sure, find this novel very uplifting all the same. I think it is a must read for French fans.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Non-Romance Novel Examines Romance,
By A Customer
This review is from: My Summer With George (Paperback)
"My Summer with George" is an ironic title for Marilyn French's latest novel in which Hermione Beldame does not spend the summer with George other than in her mind and conversation. George does come in and out of Hermione's life in New York City, but the novel is more about romantic love and its effects on sophisticated women than it is about actual romance. Hermione herself, a successful, spirited, sixty-something romance novelist, and the women in her life are as much or more interesting than George. They thoroughly discuss the role of romance in their lives. "My Summer with George" is actually a non-romance novel that examines how one woman is surprised by her longing for romance and relationship and lives more through the fantasy than the meager reality of it.
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