Summer Gone

Nominated for the 1999 Giller Prize and winner of the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Prize, Summer Gone is set among the islands and lakes of Canada&146s cottage country. Narrated by Eric Schneider, a familiar voice to CBC listeners for his radio work, it tells the stories of three generations of lost summers and of the characters that inhabited them: the girl in the blue bathing suit, the impenetrable and doomed camp councillor; the wife who comes alive to the rhythms of a cottage summer but who remains blind to the secret that will change her life irrevocably. The primary story is that of a divorced father and his young son, separated by estrangement and how the silence is broken.

“Macfarlane’s prose feels like music set to words, and this story of family secrets, memories, and the delicate bond between a father and son is splendid. Eric Schneider’s dramatic, thoughtful, lightly poetic performance is perfectly suited to the mateiral.” — Globe and Mail