The Goodbye Summer

by Patricia Gaffney and patricia-gaffney

Book Overview

From Patricia Gaffney, the phenomenal New York Times bestselling author of The Saving Graces, comes an unforgettable novel about daring to love, braving a loss, and setting yourself freeFor... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060185295
• ISBN13: 9780060185299
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

captivating teary tale

In Maryland, thirty-three years old music teacher Caddie Winger knows this is the worst summer of her life. Her close friends at Wake House; a convalescent home for the elderly and those recuperating from crippling accidents including her Nana who broke her leg; have been dying; although rationally she knows they are either septuagenarians or octogenarians. Caddie mourns their passing as she has made friends with many of them since she spends much of her free time at Wake House. It is people like elderly resident Thea who persuades Caddie who smoke joints with her while others encourage her to live life to the fullest even as the younger woman worries her beloved Nana seems to get stranger with each passing moment. Struggling with no money and no confidence, Caddie is attracted to thirtyish resident Henry Magill, who is recovering from a sky-diving accident that left his fiancée dead. This is a captivating perhaps overly teary tale of a woman who has not taken any life FLIGHT LESSONS until the senior citizens and Henry persuade Ms. Sorrowful Winger (great surname for a grounded sad eyes) to imitate Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. The storyline is aptly titled yet ironically readers know for the thirty-three years old piano teacher this is the most wonderful summer of her maudlin life. Harriet Klausner

Gaffney Does It Again

In a quirky story full of highly unusual people a la Anne Tyler, Patricia Gaffney has created a moving and simple tale of people who bond together because they have risen above the need to judge. And so they find glorious treasure in the most unlikely of fellow human beings. That may sound corny, it may sound pat--but the message here is if you look beyond the surface, you just might find gold. And, like Anne Tyler before her, Gaffney takes the most seemingly ordinary people and graces their lives with beauty, showing us that every human being is an angel--no matter how deep you have to dig! This is the story of Caddie Winger, a music teacher in her early 30s who has no notion of herself at all. She considers herself blah and invisible when she is quite the opposite. She lives an invisible existence, though, in an old house with the woman who raised her, her grandmother Nana. As the book opens, Nana, an eclectic, very "out there" "performance artist" given to creating obscene sculptures out of mud and plants in the front yard, suddenly and without warning asks Caddie to take her to a local residence for the elderly. It is not a nursing home, but one step from it. Caddie is appalled and upset--this is totally unlike Nana. But she complies, and at the home itself, Caddie, a young and attractive woman, gets drawn in to the various lives, large and small, of Nana's residential neighbors. In the process of listening to, and at times recording, the interesting life histories of the residents, Caddie begins to come out of her shell and put together the clues of her own self as well. It's a slow and painful process, and there is no "eureka!" suddenly on page 300. More, it is like real life is, a surprise, good or bad, around every corner. This is simply a wonderful book. I recommend it highly.

A book to savor

Caddie is a young woman who has led a very odd life. It's a wonder she is as dependable and compassionate as she is.We should all be so lucky to have someone so "boring" in our lives.Nana is not your usual milk and cookies grandma. She is a strange, sometmes bitter old lady, on a painful slide into the world of alzheimers disease. But as eccentric as she is, her love for Caddie is always obvious.We have all known guys like Chris. He's not a horrible person, but self centered and undependable. A believable heel.Henry McGill is a wonderful hero. He is a slow moving guy. You would be too, if you were recovering from a tragic, life altering accident.Thea is the "old" lady I want to be when it's my time. Full of zest for life, and a warm loving heart, she is a magical character.Cornel is a lonely old man who has almost succeeded in convincing himself he doesn't need to care about the rest of his life.Almost All of these lives are intertwined in a rich story infused with Pat Gaffney's usual warmth, humor, and compassion.Nobody wants to get old, everybody will. I loved reading about how the characters in this book are handling the stages of their lives.Old people, wounded people, lead slow lives. You don't heal quickly from a terrible hurt, and you don't get old quickly.Patricia Gaffney has written a beautiful book to remind us of this.I'm a little sorry for readers who found this book to be "slow". How fast and busy their lives must be.I can't imagine not wanting to find out what happens to all of these extraordinary characters, or missing Caddie's "interviews".THE GOODBY SUMMER is a book to be savored, not gobbled.It is most deserving of whatever time it takes to be read.

A favorite author

I agree with the reviewer who said Gaffney could write about a trip to the grocery store and she'd read it and love it. I feel the same way. I, too, love Gaffney's wry sense of humor and her ability to show me the world in a different way. That said, it doesn't really surprise me that some readers were bored, because this IS a quiet, character-driven story that develops slowly, and some readers just don't have the patience for that. One last comment: I liked this book so much I used it as an example of great writing at a talk I recently gave to a group of writers here in the Houston area. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone who loves women's fiction or who aspires to write women's fiction.

Charming!

THE GOODBYE SUMMER by Patricia GaffneyI read THE SAVING GRACES a few years ago, but THE GOODBYE SUMMER, Patricia Gaffney's fourth book, is so much better. I did not love THE SAVING GRACES; it was not the perfect book. Something about the way the author put that book together did not make it flow at all. She had four central characters, and although some authors are very good at writing books like this (Maeve Binchy comes to mind), Gaffney is not. However, THE GOODBYE SUMMER was such a good book, that I am going to rate this one five stars.THE GOODBYE SUMMER is the story of Caddie Winger, thirty-five years old and is living with her grandmother, "Nana", who raised her because her mother was never home due to a singing career. Caddie never knew her father. In this book, Caddie is struggling to become someone, and when she meets the man of her dreams, she finds that she is coming out of her shell and is no longer the timid, shy, music teacher she has been all her adult life. Caddie's other inspiration are the friends she makes at "The Wake House", where her grandmother insists on living at while she recuperates from an injury. It is here that Caddie starts to come alive, especially after she meets a new member of the House, Thea, who becomes the mother and best friend Caddie has always yearned for.The words to describe this book are "charming" and "wonderful". THE GOODBYE SUMMER is filled with so many interesting characters, yet they do not overwhelm the main point of the book, which is to tell Caddie's story. I did not want this book to end. If Gaffney's future novels are as good as this, she has won a new fan in me.