Summer Reading Recommendations - {throwback edition!}
Three retro beachy reads.
No essay this month…I’m going straight to summer reading recommendations.
I don’t read what some people like to call “fluff”. Not because I think I’m too good for it (I don’t) but because if I crave something light, I usually re-read a favorite book. For me, a re-read is light, as in “fluffy” because I don’t have to read as closely as I would a new novel. But a re-read also gives me a chance to visit language I admire or characters that feel like old friends. WIN/WIN. But let’s get to it! We’ve got two novels and one collection of short stories. The fun twist is they are all a) fiction and b) retro throwbacks and c) my idea of “beach reads”.
The Thorn Birds:
Set in the Australian outback, The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough tells the story of an “impossible love”, between a priest and a woman, who meet when he is a new priest and she is a little girl. But I first came to The Thorn Birds from the mini series. Mini series, as they used to be called back in the day, were a time limited, one-off television event, usually in a prime time slot. The Thorn Birds mini series starring Richard Chamberlin and Rachel Ward ran on ABC in March 1983. My mom —and the rest of America - watched the star-crossed love story unfold over four evenings. The Thorn Birds was the second most widely watched television miniseries in history at the time, behind Roots.
Father Ralph meets Meggie, the sole girl of six kids, when she’s almost five. She’s one of the youngest and by default pretty much left alone by overwhelmed, hard working but emotionally unavailable parents. Ralph is the only one who pays attention to Meggie and tries to protect her on some level, from the peerlessness of a solitary childhood but also a mean grandma. A shift in fortune for both of them shortly after Meggie turns seventeen means Ralph will move away but Meggie has grown to love the only person who’s ever really paid her any attention. Ralph tells Meggie she needs to find someone suitable and not a priest. He bends down to kiss her cheek as they say “goodbye” and she turns so they share a kiss on the mouth. The rest of their lives continue, sometimes on parallel paths, often yearning for the other.
At 530 pages, The Thorn Birds is a long book that reads easy, perfect for hot days and steamy nights. There’s sex, drama, money and compelling characters in a family epoch that spans different locations over the course of fifty years, 1920s-1970s, asking questions about duty and the limits of love.
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson:
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson was published in 1949. There are twenty-five stories including Jackson’s The Lottery, first published in The New Yorker in 1948. If you only know The Lottery or Jackson’s two most famous novels, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In The Castle, you’re in for a treat.
Shirley Jackson in her own words, read by me, about her famous story The Lottery.
The excerpt above is from from 2015 Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays and Other Writings, published posthumously by Jackson’s estate. Jackson’s stories are strange and disquieting in their exploration of the varying angles of ordinary life. There are no jump scares or horror but doors that shut slowly, firmly and lock behind you once you walk through them. Scenes and people are unsettling, never gross or obvious. My favorite stories in this collection are: The Daemon Lover, Flower Garden, Elizabeth, The Tooth and of course The Lottery. Not every story is as unsettling or even, frankly, as good as The Lottery but at 300 pages, this collection is an dead easy way to get into reading again or indulge lightly in some excellent literature before a quick swim.
From the Outback to small towns to one small town in particular . . .
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious:
Like Shirley Jackson, Grace Metalious lived in a small New England town. And like Jackson, she died way too young. But Jackson was subtle, sly, deliberate. Metalious was known for saying the quiet part out loud.
Peyton Place…a book that became so famous you might know the sentiment behind Peyton Place rather than the book, movie or TV show itself. When someone says “it’s a little Peyton Place,” you know there’s a lot of salacious and disturbing activity going on. And in Peyton Place there sure is. The book centers on a small New England town where everyone knows everyone else…or thinks they do. “Several characters and events were drawn from events in nearby towns and people that Metalious actually knew,”* including the character of Selena Cross. There’s also alcoholism, unwed mothers, incest and mental illness. It’s all a LOT in — wait for it— 1956. Not 2026 or even 1976. 1956 was well before any healthcare professionals like doctors were trained on how to identify signs of child abuse. Family violence was still considered a “personal issue” not a public health crisis. American values are still guided by the Hays Code, the self censoring regulations that managed the “moral content” of film.
According to Vanity Fair, a week before Peyton Place hit bookstores (September 24, 1956) the 380ish pg novel was already on the best-seller list, where it would remain for half a year. In its first month, it sold more than 100,000 copies, at a time when the average first novel sold 3,000, total. It would sell twelve million more, becoming one of the most widely read novels ever published. Peyton Place became a television show and later a movie, remaining popular for almost 40 years.
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There you have it! Your three summer reading recommendations, throwback edition! If you want a non-fiction trio (maybe for winter?), leave me a comment below. OR share your favorite beach reads.
*From an article in Vanity Fair found here.
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LOVE your descriptions, Elizabeth. Thinking about you today as you travel.
I loved the Thorn Birds back in the day