An aging financier makes one last trip to the Maine fishing camp that has been the site of important moments throughout his life. The story of the camp is told through the memories of the various characters who populate it.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Boston Globe Carol Iaciofano
Throughout the novel, you won't find a flashy turn of phrase that lifts off the paper. But at the end of a page you may pause simply to savor the scene and the emotions, how true they feel. The story manages to offer the same thing as this haven in the northern woods -- for a brief time you are transported, completely, to another life.
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Outstanding
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Chicago Tribune Jane Ciabattari
You don't have to know and love Maine to appreciate "The Summer Guest," the most engrossing summertime read to come along in years. Justin Cronin, whose "Mary and O'Neil" won the PEN/Hemingway Award, has constructed an intricate world of interwoven human hopes and frailties and kept every strand of it spinning through an absorbing dream of a novel. [20 June 2004, C4]
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Favorable
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Houston Chronicle Barbara Liss
Here is a gifted and assured writer whose work reveals a fine sense of place and thoughtful characters who have something worth saying.
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Favorable
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New York Observer Jennifer Egan
The triumph of The Summer Guest lies in the sheer aliveness of Mr. Cronin's language, which allows him to render up moments of devastating sadness with buoyant restraint.
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
The novel's recognition of human frailty and nobility rings true, as does its faithful recreation of a place outside the storms of history.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Melena Watrous
Reading [Cronin's] novels, one feels as if he loves people -- the ones on this Earth as well as the ones on his pages -- too much to subject them to unhappy endings. Contemporary literary fiction with a happy ending? Maybe he is an unconventional writer after all.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Emily Barton
The atmosphere of spacious stillness is powerfully conveyed. Here is an emptiness Cronin's characters can fill with their own imaginings -- or use to lend legitimacy to their loneliness.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Lizzie Skurnick
The Summer Guest explores love as the binding agent of life, not the factor that pulls it apart. And damned if Cronin doesn't almost sell you on it.
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Favorable
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Booklist Allison Block
Narrated in alternating chapters by characters whose lives are inextricably linked to each other--and to the camp--Cronin's novel reveals the rugged beauty of his native New England and the tender terrain of the human heart. [1 June 2004, p. 1699]
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Mixed
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Kirkus Reviews
Pleasant people in a pleasant setting, but without the credibility and edge to engage.
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