The Summer Without Men

From Publishers WeeklyA theatrically manic poet turns heartbreak into an intellectual endeavor in Hustvedt's intellectually spry latest (after The Sorrows of an American). Fresh out of the hospital at age 55 following a breakdown brought on by her husband's departure for a young colleague referred to as “The Pause,” award-winning poet and Columbia professor Mia Fredricksen flees Brooklyn to spend the summer in her Minnesota hometown. There she is in the company of her mother and four other feisty old ladies, the young mother next door, and the seven hormone-addled pubescent girls enrolled in her poetry class at the local arts guild. Mia sorts out her agony as only a scorned woman with a Ph.D. in comparative literature can—by pouring it through a sieve of poets, philosophers, and critical theorists. At times these references eclipse the presence of the narrator herself, but even this absence becomes the basis for philosophical rumination, as Mia corresponds online with the anonymous—and at times abusive—Mr. Nobody. Though initially trapped in a claustrophobic cerebral solitude, Mia opens up, and, in so doing, lets in some much needed air to a constricted narrative, so that instead of being another novel of a woman on the brink, this becomes an adroit take on love, men and women, and girls and women. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review“Exuberant… A lighter, more lilting meditation on men and women, released in perfect time for summer reading… Hustvedt is a fearless writer… The reward for readers comes in the sheer intelligence of her prose… There is terrific writing here, mulling the gifts and limits of art, sex, marriage, but the touch is emphatically light… She’s managed not to shrink the truth of women’s lives, without relinquishing love for men.” –San Francisco Chronicle
“Siri Hustvedt’s engaging first novel…is a fragmented meditation on identity, abandonment, and loss. Multiple forms of prose pepper the narrative: poems, letters, e-mails, journal entries, and quotes from a raft of well-known scholars, scientists, and writers … Hustvedt manages to move seamlessly between Blake and Rilke to Kierkegaard and Hegel while maintaining a forward motion to this fluid narrative… Satsifying.” –Boston Globe
“Elegant… a smart and surprisingly amusing meditation on love, friendship and sexual politics.” –The Miami Herald
“An investigation into romantic comedy, both the classic Hollywood version—‘love as verbal war’—and Jane Austen’s Persuasion… Among the novel’s pleasures are its analysis of gender…and the character of Mia herself, who comes across as honest, witty and empathetic.” –The New York Times Book Review
“This brisk, ebullient novel is a potpourri of poems, diary entries, emails and quicksilver self-analysis… The noisy chorus in Mia’s head has an appealing way of getting inside the reader’s too.” –The Wall Street Journal
“A mesmerizing and powerful meditation on marriage, the differences between the sexes, aging and what it means to be a woman…. Truly breathtaking… Rich with both the pleasures and sorrows that make life complete, this is a powerful and provocative novel that will have astute readers reconsidering where exactly the boundaries between truth and fiction lie.” –Bookpage

“Mia Frederickson, the poet narrator of The Summer Without Men… is blessed with empathy, irony and a healthy dose of feminist outrage at the way women’s minds and bodies are routinely devalued… [Hustvedt’s] finely wrought descriptions of everything from love to mean girls to marital sex make [The Summer Without Men] well worth reading.” –Associated Press
“[Hustvedt’s] finely wrought descriptions of everything from love to mean girls to marital sex make [The Summer Without Men] well worth reading.” –Associated Press
“Composed in tight vivid prose, The Summer Without Men is energetic, and handles its subjects with depth and wit, painting its characters and their complex emotions in the kind of detail that rings true to life.” –Bibliokept.org
“Breathtaking… hilarious… What a joy it is to see Hustvedt have such mordant fun in this saucy and scathing novel about men and women, selfishness and generosity…. Hustvedt has created a companionable and mischievous narrator to cherish, a healthy-minded woman of high intellect, blazing humor, and boundless compassion.” –Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
“Intellectually spry… An adroit take on love, men and women, and girls and women.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“[A] 21st century riff on the 19th-century Reader-I-married-him school of quiet insurgent women’s fiction… Tart comments on male vs. female styles of writing-and reading-novels are a delight… A smart, sassy reflection on the varieties of female experience.” –Kirkus Reviews