An interviewer recently asked me in which particular year of the 1970s my new novel The Last Summer of the Water Strider was set. I answered that it was no particular year or particular summer – rather, it was an idea of summer that lay behind the setting of the book.
This idea has always sat at the back of my mind, as a place of innocence and of discovery, and above all, of idyll. In the ideal summer, time is almost suspended. It emerges slowly, like sap from a tree. The world is a place of slow motion, of repose, of transcendence, of sex.
Water is there too, in every imagined summer – cooling, rejuvenating, the capturer of light. It symbolises rebirth, as in christening and other religious rites.
And at the edges, the darkness. In The Last Summer of the Water Strider, my main character, Adam, escapes a tragedy by going to stay with his mysterious uncle Henry on a West Country houseboat. Summer offers, as in so many stories, first love. But the forest fires are spreading across the dry land, and the innocence of teenage wonder is undermined by the intimation of death and sexual betrayal …
1. The Magus by John Fowles
Fowles is no longer a fashionable writer, but The Magus for me was the ultimate summer book when I first read it in my early 20s. Set on the Greek island of Phraxos, full of mystery, sexual undercurrents and discomfiting plot reversals, it is the work of a master storyteller. Some critics have complained of it being a work of adolescent sexual fantasy, and their claims are not groundless. But few books have transported me more effectively into their imaginative territory. I am astonished that no one has tried to make a film of it since the disastrous adaptation of 1968.
2. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
What is there left to say about this most perfect novel? The beauty of Fitzgerald is that he writes so simply and directly, and yet with such depth and presence; such a quiet yet powerful “voice”. Set in 1922, like all great summer novels it creates an atmosphere of heat and water and mystery – the greatest mystery being Gatsby himself. One of my favourite scenes in all literature, when Gatsby shows Daisy Buchanan his expensive shirts in a pathetic effort to convince her that he is worthy of her love, is just one small and luminous piece of a remarkable whole.
3. The Last Weekend by Blake Morrison
This unreliably narrated novel tells of a single weekend in August in which a friendship is gradually unpicked by male rivalry and sexual competition. Morrison starts by making you laugh – and finishes by horrifying you with the relentlessness and self-deceiving ruthlessness of his protagonist.
4. The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
For some reason, despite effectively winning the Booker prize twice, Farrell has never entered the popular imagination as one of the greats. This is his masterpiece. Complex, rich, dark and very funny, it is set at the time of the so-called Indian Mutiny of 1857, and explodes imperial pretensions with such a light touch that one could read it simply as comedy, although it is in fact multi-layered and profound. No one writes like Farrell: he manages to capture the real randomness and absurdity of everyday life (and even being under siege in India has its own everday-ness) with unparalleled skill.
For my money, McEwan’s greatest book, and something of a departure from what came before (and after). Set in the summer of 1935, but with a distinctly Edwardian feel, the country-house setting evokes all the usual spirits of sex, corruption and innocence, but with such authenticity you feel it is being done for the first time.
6. Skios by Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn’s mind seems to contain such multitudes that it is hard to get a fix on what kind of a writer he really is, as he swings between philosophy, drama, comedy and serious literary intent. I like him best when he’s being funny, though, and Skios is his funniest book since Towards the End of the Morning. Again set on a Greek island, this is a classic plot involving the unlikely confusion of identities between a roué and stuffy academic, and for all its implausibility, you buy into it sufficiently to enjoy it. The mysterious ending is typical Frayn, lifting what was simply a deft piece of entertainment into the realms of the profound.
7. Nemesis by Philip Roth
Set in 1944 during a summer polio epidemic in Roth’s home turf of Newark, New Jersey, Nemesis is one of Roth’s most readable works. It makes uncomfortable beach material because it is fundamentally – like most of Roth’s work – a tragedy, with Bucky Cantor, the innocent at the centre of the narrative, the victim of a pitiless destiny.
8. Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean
In 2006, when I had the privilege of running the ultimate summer literary prize, the Le Prince Maurice Prize in Mauritius, this book won easily against the field. A work of humour and tenderness, set at a Caribbean resort and focused on two married couples, it was Dean’s debut and her finest novel to date.
9. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
I have to admit that I do not love The Summer Book as much as some of the people I know who rave about it. It is somewhat self-consciously literary for my taste, and occasionally hard going, but that is because it resembles poetry more than it does prose and is shot through with meanings that are elusive and obscure. But I cannot help but admire it, even though given a choice, I would probably select Moominsummer Madness for my holiday reading.
10. The Go-Between by LP Hartley
Famous for its first line “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”, this is a masterclass in plot, style and depth. Set in the summer of 1900 but published in 1953, it tells the story of adult desires impinging on childhood naivety. The 1970 Joseph Losey film does the novel justice, but it is no substitute for such sublime prose.
