The Gilmore Guide to Books

Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reviews
    • Reviews by Author
    • Reviews by Title
    • Reviews by Genre
  • Podcast
  • Policies
    • Review Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy

The Summer Guest

June 15, 2016

The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson
Published by HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: May 24th 2016
four-stars

summer guest

 

Zinaida, Katya, and Ana have nothing in common, especially given that Zinaida lived in the small town of Sumy in the Ukraine in the 1800s and Katya and Ana are modern women. But in Alison Anderson’s debut novel, The Summer Guest, their lives intersect as Katya discovers Zinaida’s diary and hires Ana to translate it into English. For all three women this is their chance to emerge from from the blankness of their lives and step into history, if not on their own accomplishments, then on that of Zinaida’s friend, Anton Chekhov, who occupies a major portion of her diary in the final summers of her life.

An unusual woman for her times, Zina has a medical degree and had been working as a doctor in her community until shortly before her thirtieth birthday she began to suffer seizures and to lose her sight. She goes to live at her family’s dacha in Luka, where to help supplement their finances, her mother rents out the guesthouse to Chekhov’s family. Soon, her conversations with Chekhov are the cornerstone of her life and she records them in books her brother creates with paper specially lined so she can feel her way to try and write.

Juxtaposed against the slow quiet of the summers in Luka are the messier contemporary lives of Katya and Ana. Katya is co-founder of a publishing firm that is on the edge of bankruptcy when Zina’s diary is discovered. She hopes that with Ana’s help it can save their firm, because the diary speaks frequently of Chekhov’s work on a novel—something that, to-date, has not been known to exist. For Ana, this is the opportunity to find herself again after her twenty-year marriage collapsed. As she translates the diary she brings Zina’s life to light in the smallest details—including the fact that Zina’s greatest fear and burden, her blindness, may be the very thing that brings her closer to Chekhov.

I believe what he might have said, had he been bolder, was that in my unseeing presence, he could be another, perhaps truer self; without my gaze, he was free in a way that no sighted presence could ever allow. That is the harsh, uncomfortable truth about sight that I have discovered only since I’ve lost it: Others may use one’s blindness to find a place of comfort. 

The Summer Guest is an elegant novel that plays with time. Katya and Ana are looking to the past for their future while for Zina there is no future. Much rides on her journal and the questions it contains, but Anderson goes beyond this mystery, to the ones contained in the lives of Zina, Katya and Ana, where the truth is even harder to find.

four-stars

Related Posts

  • Related Posts
  • Same Genre
  • 4 Star Books
henna
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
you
It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews
knock
A Knock at Midnight
song
Song of a Captive Bird
november
November Reading Wrap-Up
Heads in Beds
Heads in Beds
tomorrow
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
bone clocks
The Bone Clocks
Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
his
His Only Wife: A Novel
flour
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza
commonwealth
Commonwealth: A Novel
fever
Fever: A Novel
good
The Good People: A Novel
112263
11/22/63 by Stephen King

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, Harper, historical fiction, Russia

Comments

  1. Lory @ Emerald City Book Review says

    June 15, 2016 at 10:13 am

    I’m glad you enjoyed this one. I thought it was lovely (especially the diary).

    Reply
    • Catherine says

      June 15, 2016 at 10:37 am

      Yes! Anderson did such a good job it was hard to remember it’s fiction. I tried to say that in my review, but not sure it came across.

      Reply
      • Monika @ Lovely Bookshelf says

        June 16, 2016 at 6:36 pm

        ohhh I love fiction books that make you forget they’re fiction! That’s the best 🙂

        Reply
        • Catherine says

          June 16, 2016 at 6:49 pm

          This one is very twisty that way. I was reading the diary parts thinking they were real!

          Reply
  2. Tara says

    June 15, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    Ooooh, I like these contrasting story lines, Catherine; this sounds interesting! As always, a fantastic review! Thank you!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Save time and subscribe via email

No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!

Currently Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
The Dutch House
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

goodreads.com

Affiliate Disclosure

I’m an affiliate for Indiebound and Amazon. If you click on a link that takes you to any of these sites and make a purchase I’ll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!

Archives

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2023

Copyright © 2023 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in