A Summons to Memphis (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Peter Taylor is well-known as a masterful writer of short stories set in the old South; not the well-explored South of explosive passions, but an urban world of faded gentility and empty custom. In his almost Jamesian evocations of the mannered upper classes in his native Tennessee, he neither romanticizes nor reviles, but meticulously observes, revealing the patterns of social behavior that leave the individual at the mercy of a relentless past. In this, only the second novel of his long career and the winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Taylor weaves a rich social web in telling the story of one family's stark social decline, symbolized by a move from Nashville to Memphis, and of the consequences through the years and down the generations. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

It seems amazing that only now has Taylorwell advanced in a life that seems as measured as his lucid prosedelivered himself of a second novel. It has been as well worth waiting for as a treasure uncovered after years of searching. As in his celebrated short stories, Taylor here offers a reconstruction of an earlier era in a distinctively Southern settinga closely knit society permeated by inflexible codes of conduct whose consequences reach through the generations. This is the story of the Carver family, formerly of Nashville, whose move to Memphis was the result of the father's betrayal by his best friend and major legal client. Phillip Carver, the narrator, tells of the events that followed from that move, in which his autocratic father destroyed the lives of his wife and all four of his children. The circumstances are affected by the particular milieu of Memphis, just a few hundred miles away from Nashville, but having its own accents of speech, social hierarchy, customs and patterns of behavioreven a certain style of dressing. Taylor conveys these characteristics in the same way that he evokes personality: with an accretion of detail built on sensitive and sympathetic observation. As the novel unfolds, what seems a simple story becomes weighted with psychological nuances, revealed as layer after layer of family secrets is stripped away. In a beautifully constructed symmetry, events come full circle; the revelation of paternal hubris also unmasks treachery and festering resentment and fully illuminates the tragedy of hopes dashed and young lives wasted. Through a final, wrenching irony, Phillip eventually comes to understand the wellsprings of his father's character, and he is able to achieve empathy and forgiveness. Master raconteur Taylor casts implicationsfar wider than his novel's settingabout the insidious undercurrents in family relationships. This is a wise book, and despite its deliberate understatement, a profoundly affecting one.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage International Ed edition (June 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375701176
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701177
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,409 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Restrained and dignified look at a family?s troubled history, December 23, 2001

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Winner of 1987's Pulitzer Prize, this genteel and very old-fashioned tale of a troubled family is more in the tradition of Eudora Welty than that of Jonathan Franzen. Filtering the whole story through the eyes of Philip Carver, a collector of antique books in his late 40's, the author startles the reader by making no effort whatsoever to involve him vicariously in the action, something we now take for granted in modern fiction. Instead, he requires the reader to get to know Philip through his first-person narrative, draw conclusions about his background, and observe how unfolding events change his perceptions, not only about present actions, but of the past, as well.

Philip is, at heart, very much a southern gentleman, despite the fact that he thinks he has escaped his Nashville and Memphis heritage for New York, where he has lived for almost fifteen years, unmarried, with Holly Kaplan. Despite the painful relationship he has had with his autocratic but reserved father, now in his eighties, he responds to a series of phone calls from his unmarried sisters and returns to Memphis, where his father is planning to remarry, an eventuality which the sisters find anathema and which they are determined to countervail.

Both the immediate situation in Memphis and the history leading up to it are told in the past tense, with flashbacks to still earlier times, a rare and difficult narrative approach which keeps the reader at arm's length, but Taylor manages to give emotional power to unfolding events, in part, because Philip's narrative restraint contrasts so sharply with the meanness and manipulation of his "well-meaning" father and, now, his sisters. The irony grows as the reader sees parallels between the present circumstances of the father, his fiancée, and the sisters, and events which happened many years ago. The tables have been turned, but Philip exhibits no sense of victory, no gloating, only growing self-awareness and understanding. He remains a gentleman to the very end in this most unusual and enlightening novel. Mary Whipple

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very restrained, yet emotionally intense story of a family, January 13, 2005

By	Reader Col (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

Peter Taylor, a native Tennessean, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with this story in 1987. That, together with my residence in Nashville, was enough to recommend it to me.

The story is narrated by Phillip Carver, a fiftyish man who grew up in Nashville and Memphis in a prosperous and well-known family. The patriarchal head of the family, George Carver, had a thriving legal practice in Nashville before moving his entire family to Memphis after being involved in a business scandal with a prominent business partner. This story is about the ramifications that move had upon Carver's children, now middle aged and unmarried - Phillip and his two sisters, Betsy and Josephine. Their lives, all successful in their own ways, have been driven by an abiding resentment towards their father, and the father, in turn, directed their lives in ways that would appear devious and pernicious, including despoiling marriage plans for each one. Phillip had made flight to New York some fifteen years prior to the time period described here (which I calculated to be in the mid-1960's). The narrator, his father, now in his early eighties, and his two sisters, all carry immense emotional baggage towards one another. But it is of a type of baggage that is never given overt voice, lying buried beneath a veneer of politeness and rectitude. Indeed, the narrator conveys deep-seated emotional memories with a kind of dispassionate elan, if that is possible; he feels a step removed from the events of his life, and his feelings towards his sisters and father are unresolved, even under-developed. Indeed, he never quite resolves his feelings towards them, but dutifully returns to Memphis frequently over the course of the story at the behest of his sisters, who have engaged in a lifelong obsession over their father and his affairs. Phillip does receive some revelation on these matters towards the end and sees his family members as they perhaps really were and are.

In some ways, very little happens in this story. I had a sense of wanting the writer to break out and really tell a story. The narrator's emotional aloofness serves to prevent this. Eventually, the story does take off, but it takes some time. The writing is very subtle, and Taylor does have a knack for understatement. But perhaps he was more of a short story writer, as his resume suggests - I did enjoy this book, especially the insights into the lives of the cultural elite in regions that I am very familiar with, but am ambivalent about its being awarded the highest literary prize. Maybe on reflection I will change this view, but for now, I am a little untouched by this work.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulously written, September 22, 2000

By	Shannon Byrd (New York) - See all my reviews

Peter Taylor writes in a way that makes every moment enjoyable and worth remembering. The story of the lives of the members of the Carver family and the profound effect a move from Nashville to Memphis has on them is unforgettable. By the novel's end the reader is left with so much to consider, from the relationships of the characters to their motivations and eventual lifestyles. And unlike one of the last books I read, Philip Roth's American Pastoral, which also chronicled the life of an American family, Taylor's book is beautifully written but yet simple and clear - no egotistical self-loving prose here! I would actually plan on reading some of Taylor's other works, this was so enjoyable. You won't forget this one.