Pride Month Book Review of “Summer of Sons” by Lee Mandelo
A Review of Summer Sons
By Lee Mandelo
I was very worried about starting this book. I stared at it for several months before working up the nerve to crack the cover. It is very thick (but I’ve been reading a lot of novellas) and some of the reviews said things that made me go “uh oh, I might not like that very much either'' and also “uh oh, it has so many pages, what if it destroys my desire to read forever? WTF am I gonna do with myself then?” I admit the inside of my head is an overly dramatic place sometimes but this book scared me before I even read one of its words. It features the aftermath of something I try to avoid reading about most of the time because I don’t want to fall into a funk. Friends warned me so I waited for a time when I was ready and I’m glad I did (thank you friends, I love you for that). This book begins after an apparent suicide (not a spoiler, please don’t yell at me because it says so on the back cover and it tells you almost immediately) and it deals with the feelings of the very angry, very upset, very tortured young man who has been left behind. It’s raw and heavy stuff and the grief and resulting destructive behavior is pretty damn accurate. Save this one for a time when you have a few hours to sink into it.
Andrew had planned to meet up at a fancy University to move in with his best friend Eddie who left a few months earlier, settled in, began his research into regional occult folklore and then . . . died. Andrew is completely devastated by the loss when the book opens and heads out to discover exactly what happened because he simply can’t believe his best friend/adopted brother would do what he did. Following Andrew around like a black cloud along with his grief is the revenant of Eddie that haunts him. Andrew is thrown into a new world of fast cars, sexy new acquaintances and shady goings-on as he attempts to unravel the mysteries surrounding Eddie’s demise.
This story is drenched in grief but it’s also filled with mystery, some damn good sexual tension and an overall feeling of unease. I loved it. I was truly surprised by just how much I enjoyed it because I’m not a huge fan of car racing and had some worries after reading a few reviews but those scenes went by quickly for me and seemed to help burn off some of that wild energy surrounding these people. Some readers may dislike Andrew and the entire cast of characters here and I get that. They are a messy delight - or at least I thought so. But they are not for everyone and at times they reminded me a wee bit of the characters in Poppy Z. Brite’s LOST SOULS. They’re imperfect, sometimes frigging mean and mostly unlikable, they treat women badly but I couldn't hate them just as I didn’t despise any of the people in this story who sometimes behave the same way. Andrew is 22 or 23. He’s barely begun his life when he loses the one person closest to him. Yup he’s rude, he sure is! He’s also a self-centered jerk and he dismisses the people trying to help him and he’s all of those terrible things that people are saying about him but he’s also lost and in a tragedy spiral while struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. That is A LOT for one young person to handle and I couldn’t hate him for any of it once I realized what was going on in his head. He’s also being relentlessly haunted by the angry revenant of his lost friend for some added emotional trauma. Grief manifests in many ways and this feels like an accurate depiction during this small snapshot in time as he starts to come to terms with everything.
I mentioned above that some of the women in this story are treated badly but I also want to mention that the men and their bullshit get called out for it and can I tell you how much I loved that? Well, I’m telling you anyway because I loved that. We deserve to see more of that if you ask me.
It’s a wildly emotional read and I’m giving it all five of my angsty stars. Yeah, maybe some stuff could’ve been trimmed a little bit or maybe I’m just spoiled by the pace of novellas but even with that said I had a hard time putting it down when people bugged me and I wanted to keep going with it because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It may even become a comfort reread in the future. So, yeah, that’s a five for me.
Laurie is a long-time horror fan, book reviewer and a co-founder of Ladies of Horror Fiction. You can find Laurie on her blog Bark’s Book Nonsense, on Twitter as @barksbooks, on Instagram as @barksbooks, and on Goodreads.
As part of our Pride Month celebrations, we asked those submitting guest posts to provide a link to a charity of their choice. Laurie chose LGBTQ mental health and suicide prevention | AFSP and we would ask, if you are able, if you could please consider a donation to support their work.
