Summerlong

April 20, 2015
Bakopoulos (Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon) trades in urban angst for smalltown discontent in this novel, which begins on a late-spring evening in Grinnell, Iowa, when married father of two, Don Lowry, comes across sexy and suicidal Amelia Benitez Cooper (called ABC); meanwhile, his wife, Claire, a one-time novelist, meets itinerant actor Charlie Gulliver. Recent returnees to Grinnell, ABC is mourning the death of her lover, Philly, and Charlie is going through his mentally incapacitated father’s papers to find the novel he once wrote. ABC was one of the elder Gulliver’s favorite students. As the summer temperature rises, the Lowrys decide to separate. Claire and the kids move in with Charlie, and Don moves in with ABC and the elderly woman she cares for, Ruth Manetti. In a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage, Don suggests to Claire that they go through with their annual family vacation at a friend’s cabin on a lake in Northern Minnesota. Charlie, ABC, and Ruth are also along for the ride, as the story becomes a kind of American middle-class homage to Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night. Although the ghosts of Cheever and Updike hover overhead, Bakopoulos is very much his own writer, and it is his distinct humanity and sense of humor that make this story so emotionally rewarding. This is that rare, contemporary suburban novel with characters the reader can actually embrace in spite of their many flaws.

June 15, 2015

In the small Midwestern town of Grinnell, IA, the summer sun exposes despair, lust, and infidelity. Current and former residents merge--in more ways than one--seemingly to deal with a lingering question: Is the relative predictability of life in the Midwest pleasurable, mind-numbing, or both? The same quandary applies to marriage--safe, suffocating, or a mixture of the two? People whose paths cross in Grinnell during one distinct summer take advantage of typical coping escapes--sex, pot, alcohol--to avoid thinking about the elusive answers. Don and Claire have financial problems, ABC (a young woman who goes by her initials) is mourning the loss of her soul mate, Charlie is a discouraged actor, and Ruth is an older woman who serves as the collective memory of the town's behind-the-scenes life. Their entanglements enable each of them to move forward, at least a little. This look into the "summer of our discontent" concludes on a satisfying and somewhat mystical note. VERDICT In the vein of John Updike, Bakopoulos's third novel (after My American Unhappiness) reaches into the heart of a small community and reveals that sometimes lives need to unravel before they can be stitched together again. [Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis P.L.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2015
It's a long, hot summer in the sleepy college town of Grinnell, Iowa. Don Lowry, the area's most successful real-estate agent, hides the fact that his own house is in foreclosure from his wife, one-time novelist Claire. Claire has secrets of her own: she's bored, lonely, and lusting after Charlie Gulliver, a failed actor who has returned home to care for his ailing father, a former professor with a reputation for seducing his female students. Over pot-smoking sessions, Don forms an unlikely friendship with one of those students. Known only by her initials, ABC, she is planning to commit suicide in order to go to the spirit world in search of her former roommate, the only person she ever truly loved. As Claire and Don spiral toward divorce, Charlie comes to terms with his father's legacy, and ABC finds an unlikely kindred spirit. Tennessee Williams has nothing on Bakopoulos (My American Unhappiness, 2011) when it comes to marital and moral dissipation fueled by the summer's rising temperatures. Yet into this emotional abyss Bakopoulos injects a high degree of coy humor and wry self-deprecation to deliver a heartbreaking and wise novel of false starts and new beginnings. A sure hit with fans of the three Jonathans: Dee, Franzen, and Tropper.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)