Customer Reviews

The Summer of the Bear: A Novel

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This is a whimsical coming of age story of three siblings growing up on a far northern Scottish Island. They've just lost their diplomatist father in a horrible accident (or was it suicide?) and their mother has emotionally checked out of their lives. The two oldest Georgie, 17 and Alba, 14 are negotiating puberty with more or less success but the girls' 9 year old brother Jamie is floundering but then he's always been on the odd. He can't accept that his much loved dad is gone forever and becomes convinced that he has returned in the guise of a grizzly bear that's been lost on their island having slipped away from his wrestling bear owner. This honors the beliefs of the local fishermen who legend has it can return to life as seagulls. Mom's drinking becomes worse as she sits up nights rereading her husband's apparent suicide note and rehashing their life together searching for truth and some meaning. The kids are left alone to raise themselves and one another. There is a non-cloying sweetness to this book. It's filled with nostalgia (it's set in the 1970's), the Hebrides island a remote but beautiful place and there's the magical thinking of childhood that never quite tips over into the fantastical. Finally there's optimism and love that leads to honesty and a remerging and renewing within this family. Another juicy tidbit are the snippets of the father's diplomatic work concerning the cold war as it played out in Germany in the decades post World War II.

Bella Pollen's newest book, The Summer of the Bear, was my first introduction to Pollen's work. Set in 1980, Letty Fleming and her children are moving to a Scottish island after the death of Letty's husband, an embassy worker who died accidentally.

When questions about her husband's work come up, it is difficult for the family to continue to defend the man they thought they knew. Especially struggling is Jamie, Letty's young son, who refuses to believe his father is dead. Now in his new home, Jamie has decided that a bear that is on the loose is really his father, and Jamie looks for this bear wherever he goes. His older sisters, Georgie and Alba are struggling in their own way as is their mother.

I enjoyed the storyline of this novel, and also the Scottish setting, a locale I rarely read of in books. While this is not a mystery, there is a bit of suspense and the unknown as Letty and Tom, her husband's good friend, try to understand Nicky's death that came so unexpectedly. Georgie, the oldest daughter may be able to shed some light on things, as she and her father took a trip to East Berlin shortly before his death. Georgie is worried that what she reveals may implicate her father in something, so tries to keep what she knows to herself.

While I am normally not someone who enjoys any narration by animals, there are brief chapters narrated by the bear in this story. And, despite the fact that I don't much believe that Nicky became the bear- like Jamie believed- I could almost hear Nicky's voice in those chapters, and it seemed entirely believable.

The Summer of the Bear will make a nice summer read.

Nicky and Letty have it all. Young, in love with a great marriage and three beautiful children, they are posted in Bonn with Nicky's diplomatic career and rumored to be in the running for the Ambassador's job in Rome. Then tragedy strikes. Nicky falls from a roof on the Embassy and is killed. Letty, her world destroyed, takes the children back to the island in the Outer Hebrides where they spend every summer to try to put their world back together and figure out how to go on without Nicky.

Nothing seems to be working. Georgie, the oldest girl, tries to fill in mothering her younger siblings as Letty is barely coping. But Georgie is ready for University and starting to discover men. Alba, the middle child, has developed a cruel streak that she takes out on everyone, especially her little brother, Jamie. Jamie, the only boy and eight years old, is more lost than the others. No one has told him his father is dead; just that he is "lost". Jamie obsesses about finding him and about a circus bear that has escaped and is loose somewhere on the island. He is an unsophisticated, innocent child who just wants to make everything right again.

Bella Pollen has created a magical book about families coming together and building their lives on the treasure they have in each other. The book is told through alternating views of each character, allowing the reader to slowly piece together the puzzle of what happened in Bonn and how to move on in their lives. The people and culture of the little-known Outer Hebrides Islands is lovingly portrayed. This book is recommended for all readers.

Transitioning smoothly between the present and past and among the lives of the main characters, Bella Pollen recounts a heart-rending tale of loyalty, loss, and the hurt and hope that comes with being a part of a family. Leticia Fleming is stunned by the death of her husband, a diplomat in Bonn during the Cold War, and the ensuing rumors and accusations that he was a traitor and his death a suicide. Betrayed by those nearest her, she flees with her young family to an isolated island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides'. On the island, surrounded by stark and bleak surroundings and by people sheltered from the modern world and entrenched in old beliefs and values, she and her young children are forced to confront their loss and grapple to uncover the truth behind it. They tear each other apart in their individual struggles and with the secrets they keep, creating tiny rifts in the family that only intensify the pain that each faces. As they work through their grief, Letty and her two daughters Georgie and Alba become slowly convinced of their husband and fathers' guilt. Jamie, the youngest son who suffers with communication and physical ability, is the only one of the four who remains convinced of his fathers' loyalty and his continued presence in their lives. Jamie's father promised him that he would return and Jamie refuses to forget that promise. As he settles into the island, he slowly comes to believe that his father has taken the form of an escaped grizzly bear that is loose somewhere along the coastline and he sets about to find the bear and see his father once more. In his search, and in the retelling of each characters' memories and experiences on the island, the truth of his father's death is slowly revealed and the family is ultimately able to find peace and healing, though they must experience tragedy first.

This book is touching in many ways, revealing so well the importance of family and the ease with which it can be destroyed. Pollen takes the smallest details of each characters' life and retells them with sensitivity and understanding. Each story is captivating, revealing how simple it is to lie not only to others but to ourselves as well, and how damaging those lies can be. The suspense she creates surrounding the father's death, the identity of the bear and the ultimate fate of the family is subtle and draws you on swiftly through the book to a satisfying conclusion. The small details of the island and its inhabitants (including the renegade bear) add a charming quality to the book that rounds it out well. In all, a superb book that is sure to leave an impression.

This is a beautiful little book, deceptively simple, yet filled with delightful turns of phrase and dialogue that has a capacity to get underneath all the characters and reveal their lives and emotions in all their complexity. The Fleming family's lives have been made that much more complicated by the death of the father, Nicky, a diplomat stationed in Bonn during the late seventies, while the Cold War is still raging (or intensifying, or freezing, or whatever a Cold War does). His death is considered a suicide and it raises questions about the nature of his activities, particularly one suspicious trip to Berlin with his daughter.

Finding it difficult to deal with the suspicions and insinuations, the family retreat to their residence in the Outer Hebrides, but they find that life isn't simplified by living in a small isolated community. The three children all have problems of their own growing-up, the girls Georgie and Alba reaching a certain difficult age, trying to find their place in the world and establish their own personalities. It's more complicated for Jaimie, the youngest boy, who has learning difficulties and may be autistic. None of them have processed the news of their father's death, least of all Jaimie, who believes that his father is lost but could have returned in the form of an escaped bear that is loose on the island.

Bella Pollen's writing and evocation of each of the characters and the big-little dramas of their lives is spellbinding, capturing the internal struggle within each of them, their actions and reactions, the secrets and the lies that each of them use as little self-deceptions in their daily lives to shore-up the illusions they need to keep going. The fostering of illusions applies as much to the big scale subject of the Cold War as much as it does the Flemings, and even the lives of the other minor characters on the island, and the author brings these all together with remarkable ease and a great deal of charm. It's so good that the depiction of the daily lives of the family is delightful on its own, and it really doesn't need the mystery and intrigue of the spy games to keep it engaging for the reader. Most people will want a resolution however, and the author provides one that should satisfy while retaining the delightful magical ambiguity of the presence of the bear, but it does feel a little too quickly and easily arrived at. Nonetheless, The Summer of the Bear is a wonderful, charming and entertaining book that should hold the reader in its considerable thrall and likely remain with them for some time afterwards.

The Summer of the Bear tries to be many things at once: a mystery (involving possible espionage), a family saga, a children's adventure, a comedy, at least two love stories, a bit of a political/environmental story, and maybe a fantasy (the last could also be read as a story of spirituality). It succeeds at some of those ambitions more than others.

Bella Pollen's novel tells an odd but (mostly) charming story that focuses on young Jamie Fleming and his family. Jamie's father, Nicky Fleming, is a diplomat. When Nicky dies in Bonn after falling from the embassy's roof, he is widely believed to have committed suicide. Jamie's mother, Letty, doesn't quite have the heart to tell Jamie, substituting "he's gone" and "he's not coming back" for the stark language of death. Mildly irritated that his father won't be taking him to the circus to see the performing bear, Jamie becomes convinced that his father is away on a secret mission worthy of James Bond. Jamie's spoken belief that his father is a spy is unfortunately misunderstood; rumors are already afoot that Nicky was actually working for East Germany against the interests of the UK. The rumors stem from a partially written letter to Letty -- found crumpled on Nicky's desk after his death -- that mentions a secret he's been keeping from her. Embassy officials view the letter as a confessional suicide note. At some point Letty starts to wonder whether her husband's death was neither accidental nor a suicide, while at the same time fighting doubts about whether the man she loved did (as some additional evidence suggests) engage in an act of treason.

Nicky's death forces the family to return home to the Outer Hebrides. At about the same time, a bear arrives on the island, escapes from its owner, and takes up residence in a cave. The bear shares its thoughts with the reader (it's quite the philosopher) and has an almost telepathic connection to Jamie. There is also an apparent connection between the bear (which we're told has "a half human heart") and the deceased Nicky -- at least Jamie, having heard tales of reincarnation from the islanders, would like to believe there is.

The bear storyline required more suspension of disbelief than I could muster; I think the book would have been better off without it. The novel works best as comedy. Much of the story is wryly amusing and one scene (involving an incident that caused Nicky's kids to be banned from the embassy) caused me to burst into sustained laughter. I was taken by the island's colorful characters and by Jamie, who has a knack for inventing wild explanations for things he doesn't understand that, in their own way, make a silly kind of sense.

The story also works well as an exploration of a family dynamic following the death of a husband and father. The relationship between the siblings rings true. Each kid reacts to Nicky's death in a different, credible, well-defined way. Letty's two daughters are simultaneously endearing and maddening; that also rings true, as does their resentment of their mother's detachment after their father's death. Finally, the story does a reasonably sound job of building suspense as the characters edge closer to learning the truth about Nicky's actions. The conclusion of that storyline is quite satisfying. The ending of the parallel story involving Jamie and the bear was too over-the-top for my taste, although I'll concede that it was well done. While the result is a mixed review, on balance I recommend the novel because more elements work than fail, and even the elements that didn't thrill me were skillfully executed.

Summer of the Bear is a mystery, a novel of magic realism, a coming of age story, and so much more. Nicky, the father, has died suddenly and his family withdraws to their special place in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Having been there, I must say the author captured the harshness and elegance of the islands very well: the machair, the waves, the wind, the sense of mystery. Layered on this description is a tale of grief played out differently in each family member from the youngest child to the widow. Some reviewers have discussed the bear in the novel (an escaped grizzly) as being unnecessary, but I feel it lends a magical element -- perhaps the bear is just in Jamie's mind, perhaps not, but it is a brilliant use of an unusual character to further the action. This book is a perfect summer read.

Elisabeth Davis, author/illustrator of Harley, The Throwaway Puppy

The Fleming family retreats to a family cottage in the Outer Hebrides following the death of Nick Fleming in 1980s West Germany. Accusations of treason and a suicide note from the diplomat lead his wife to question how well she knew her husband while her two daughters struggle to define themselves and her young son leaves clues for his "lost" father to find the family. As the Flemings arrive on the island, a tamed bear escapes from his owner and hides out in a sea cave. A strange connection forms between bear and boy as Bella Pollen weaves a sleepy sort of magic in The Summer of the Bear.

The novel moves at a well measured pace: slow but designed to capture readers. Pollen creates a world to spend time in. When she brings the main plot threads together, it's with a feeling of moving the characters along to whatever waits for them after the last page is turned.

Pollen's chapters alternate perspectives among the Fleming family. Letty pieces together evidence of Nick's treason while shutting herself away from her children. Georgia, the older daughter, accompanied her father on a trip to East Berlin and knows something about the secrets he was keeping. Alba, the middle child, uses anger to keep her feelings at bay. Jamie is the special one; his mind doesn't work the way it should and it takes him a long while to understand his father isn't lost, but dead.

The characters could be written easily as stereotypes. The two daughters struggle to emerge as fully realized characters, with only Georgia achieving that successfully. Letty and Jamie, however, are very real. Jamie's mental disabilities - which are never categorized clearly - could have made him too precious, but Pollen grounds his differences in having Jamie just be a child, fighting with his sister and looking for proof that his bear is real.

Jamie and his father were supposed to go to the circus on the day Nick died. Among the attractions was a bear act, and when Jamie sees a truck advertising a performing bear on the family's trip to the island, he decides the bear will help him find his father.

The bear feels a connection to Jamie as well, and Pollen checks in with the bear in short chapters that may be too anthropomorphic for some readers but can be explained by the bear's time with humans. Pollen stops short of delivering magic realism, but doesn't offer explanations for everything either.

The Summer of the Bear has some flaws. The answers to Nick's treasonous behaviors seem like an afterthought as the novel increases tension about Jamie and the bear. What Nick may or may not have done gives the other characters something else to do. An environmental MacGuffin near the end of the novel provides an excuse for Letty to leave the family cottage and not much else.

But the flaws are minor or, at least, don't negate the engaging story Pollen tells. The Summer of the Bear is a novel to relish and to mourn when the last page is read.

The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen is a very interesting story about a family dealing with the loss of the father in the family. The novel takes place on the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in the summer of 1979.This story is told in alternating chapters by the members of the Fleming family and by the circus bear. Yes the bear in this story has thoughts. The circus bear escapes from his handler while swimming in the ocean. Georgie, the eldest daughter feels that she is responsible for the death of her father, Alba the middle child hates everyone, especially her younger brother Jamie. Jamie does not believe that his father is dead because his father promised to return, he thinks that his father was a spy and hopes that the bear, if he can find him, may be able to help him find out the truth. Other parts of the story are told in flashbacks mostly by the mother Letty and Georgie. Letty remembers how she and Nick met and Georgie about the time she went with her father to Germany.

A tense, engrossing, magical story on the island that Letty grew up on and some of the local characters that live on the island. A very enjoyable read.

After the father dies in an accident in Germany, an English family consisting of the widow, two teenage girls, and a son of eight moves to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland where the family have a cottage. They all lived in 1980s (Cold War) Germany because Nicky, the father, was a diplomat for the British government there. His death is considered suspicious by his colleagues.

Mother Letty is falling apart and cannot look after her children. Alba is the middle child and running wild. She is sulky and negative the whole time and bullies her small brother, Jamie. Georgie is the oldest child and seems to cope best.

Jamie hasn't quite understood what has happened to his father (or hasn't wanted to understand it) and believes his father has had an accident and has gone away (as he's been told "Your father is gone"). He keeps looking for his father everywhere and when a bear is on the loose on their Scottish Island, he believes it may be connected to his father.

Letty, even though she's almost catatonic with grief, manages to find out bit by bit what has happened to Nicky, her husband, and whether he's has been spying against his country, or is in fact, a hero.

This story started off well, with the family moving to Scotland after the death of the father. I love to read about remote places and this certainly was one. So I hoped to be swept away, virtually, by the wind and the sea. But unfortunately, this didn't happen for me. I could envisage the place and the weather quite well, but it was from a little distance, rather than directly in the story. In other words, I didn't feel "present" in the story.

The way the family was coping with the recent loss and the move to the remote island was described very well and was absolutely believable. The mother, Letty, did not have any energy to look after her children, Alba took it out on her young brother especially, Georgie went her own quiet way, and Jamie was searching for clues as to where his father had gone.

There was one major problem I had with the book, and that was the bear in the title. This was a rather anthropomorphic bear. For instance, it recognized that a piece of paper in a bottle was a map of Europe, it finds a wooden box from the Ukraine, Irish naval uniforms. It thinks walruses are interesting because they can explore ship wrecks.

This could work, if there were other elements of magical realism or other thinking animals. But just this one bear? It didn't work for me.

The story was built up well. I liked the family and wanted to know what would happen. It was an easy read and I read it within a few days. An original idea, for sure!