Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 8, 1990 TAG: 9007080242
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO BOOK PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
This book isn't as much fun as a week at the beach, or even a day at the lake, but it's still a fine hardcover vacation.
It's a collection of writings, pictures and photographs of summer; an evocative work that celebrates the simple, slow-paced pleasures of the season. Many of the works are unashamedly nostalgic but the collection as a whole avoids cloying sweetness. The subjects are the ones we're all familiar with: summer romances, vacation, food, baseball, beaches, pools. Of the art, the pieces by Edward Hopper, Walker Evans and David Hockney are especially well chosen.
From the text, my own favorites are two humorous essays. Here are a couple of samples. From Calvin Trillin's "Chiggers": "Let's deal right away with the obsession issue. I would maintain that I am not properly described as obsessed with chiggers. Interested in a rather intense way, yes - but not obsessed . . . I live in the East now and I can't tell you what a relief it is for me to live in a chigger-free zone."
Roy Blount Jr.'s "Tan": "I hate to be just . . . sunning. Sunned against is more like it. Lying smeared with lotion on sand in the hot sun is like being rolled in cornmeal and dropped in a hot pan of Crisco, only less dramatic. `Soaking up the rays,' sunners call it. I would rather soak up gravy, thereby replenishing, not depleting, the body's essential oils."
Marianne Gingher's reminiscence on pre-interstate vacations is another favorite. All in all, this "Summer" is as refreshing and appropriate to the season as a tall glass of iced tea.
by CNB