The Summer Before the War

This story had so much potential –an unexpectedly pretty Latin teacher is cast out upon the world after her father’s death and meets a young, dashing, too serious doctor. Their story begins in the lazy Edwardian “summer before the war” and despite differences in rank and privilege, they are intellectually suited for each other. I was really into it for the first 150 pages or so. Then, like a literary titanic, the next 350 pages slowly sunk under the weight of a swarm of Belgian refugees, a pouty poet, an aging nudist, and page upon page of please-poke-my-eyes-out dialogue.

I feel as though Helen Simonson experienced an identity crisis in this novel. Her first novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, was cute, verging on the ridiculous, and while I don’t fault her for wanting to write something more serious, the problem in this novel was that she couldn’t decide whose story she wanted to write. In the end, she tried to give too many characters space, which resulted in everyone falling flat. I expected something light, but ended up reading a heavy-handed, unoriginal elegy about the travails of war. Simonson needs to decide whether she wants to write Chick-Lit, thinly disguised as quality literature, or whether she wants to be the next Ernest Hemingway.