The Summer Without Men: 'Alarmingly funny' - TLS

FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED 'Funny, moving and erudite, playfully reminding us of a contemporary Jane Austen' Daily Mail 'Astoundingly joyful' Guardian 'Alarmingly funny' Times Literary Supplement After Mia's husband of thirty years asks for a 'pause', to indulge his infatuation with a young French colleague, she briefly breaks down before retreating to the prairie town of her childhood, to rage and reassess her life. Slowly, however, she's drawn into the lives of the women around her: her mother's circle of feisty widows, her young neighbour with two small children, the teenage girls in her poetry class. As Mia faces her summer without men, she must discover what's worth fighting for - and on whose terms. 'A rich and intelligent meditation on female identity' Sunday Times 'A mordant comedy' Observer

About the Author :
Siri Hustvedt is the author of seven novels, five collections of essays, a poetry collection and a memoir. Her books have been listed for major prizes, including the Booker Prize, the Women's Prize and the PEN America Literary Award, and she has been awarded the LA Times Book Prize, the Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon, the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities, the Princess of Asturia Award and the Openbank Literature Award, among others. She holds a PhD from Columbia University and has been awarded honorary PhDs from Johannes Gutenberg University, Stendhal University and the University of Oslo. She is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and has written on art for the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph. Born in Minnesota, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Review :
Siri Hustvedt is a novelist of great intelligence. She knows the ways of the world and of the heart ... The Summer Without Men is a new departure. Despite its painful subject matter - marital rupture, encroaching death, the tormenting antics of malice-ridden girls - the novel is a mordant comedy. Observer A rich and intelligent meditation on female identity, written in beguiling lyrical prose ... heady and intoxicating -- Lucy Scholes The Sunday Times Hustvedt is a writer of luminous perception -- Jane Shilling Telegraph Hustvedt's intensely visual writing spans the generations. She can conjure up a child's realm of imaginary friends as evocatively as the brave face adopted by the elderly living in "a world of continual loss". The story of one woman regaining her own identity, it's by turns funny, moving and erudite, playfully reminding us of a contemporary Jane Austen. -- Claire Colvin Daily Mail It's a warm, affecting tale about love, loss and finding consolation in female friendship. Hustvedt captures both the absurdity and the tragedy of life -- Sebastian Shakespeare Tatler [Mia] is alarmingly funny and her narrative toys with the immediacy of the epistolary novel ... Events are coupled with commentary, commentary leads into event and temporal sequence is delightfully confused. Such digressive freedom is one of the pleasures of The Summer Without Men, in which fiction, fantasy, and historical fact are interweaved. -- Stephanie Bishop TLS The Summer Without Men shows a mind alive, at work and boundlessly curious about the way people live and love. It is the kind of book with which to grapple and argue, to challenge and fight, but also with which to engage and at which to marvel. The Age Siri Hustvedt is an intelligent, intuitive, talented writer -- Lionel Shriver FT Mia is a quicksilver, engaging guide, who manages to meditate on the nature of womanhood without it sounding like a lecture Daily Telegraph The Summer Without Men is not a plot-driven novel - its pleasures lie in the precise, lyrical style, the quality of thought and the complexities of the characters. -- Brendan Robshaw Independent on Sunday