Page Turners – April 2025 review

The Page Turners book for April was ‘The Summer Without Men‘ by Siri Hustvedt. It was published in 2011.

The story is told in the first person by Mia, whose husband of thirty years has asked her for a ‘pause’ while he pursues an affair with a younger work colleague. After a brief breakdown she goes to spend the summer in the town where she was brought up, where she spends her time with her elderly mother and her friends, the young mother next door and a group of teenage girls who she teaches in summer school. We felt the story would give us much to discuss about the nature of female relationships.

However, most of us struggled with the book. Whilst we found parts of the story interesting, particularly the running of the workshop for teenagers and how their bullying is dealt with, we were disappointed with the book overall. The bulk of it is fleshed out with Mia’s not so interesting ruminations on an extraordinarily wide range of philosophical and literary references – some familiar, but many obscure. They came over as pretentious, showing off the author’s erudition and were all too often baffling.

Fortunately, our leader for the afternoon had prepared some interesting questions and we were able to consider the way in which the book was written as well as relating it to our own experiences. Had Mia changed over the summer? Had her husband changed? Was the tie of their shared history enough to keep them together? Could things be the same again but in a different way? The book finishes but we are not completely sure how the story ends.

I probably haven’t sold this to you as a ‘page turner’ but nevertheless, if you are interested in reading it do get in touch as some of us have copies to share.

Deborah, convenor