Summertime

Editorial Reviews

"“Compelling, funny, moving and full of life.”" - The Observer

"Here in Summertime, passion exceeds argument. Here for a moment she [the reviewer] answers as a reader not with her head but with her heart." - Delia Falconer, Australian Literary Review

"As the [fictional] biography unfolds, the picture that emerges is devastatingly honest, charming, at times funny, but always self critical. The book is not too cool or too neat. It is a stunning achievement by a man at the height of his powers." - Sandy McCutcheon, Courier Mail

"“ ... this third volume of fictionalised biographies both odd and brilliantly executed, its main character a distinctly insignificant figure.’" - Peter Craven, The Age

"“Summertime is an exhilarating read. Like being played with by a magnificent lion whose paws sometimes caress but at other times the muscle and the claw send you spinning. The sly joke is that this lion puts the idea into his text that he, the writer, is inconsequential. Here is a paradox: a man such as this can write words that touch readers at the deepest level.”" - Helen Elliot, The Age

"“'To my mind,' she adds, 'a talent for words is not enough if you want to be a great writer. You have also to be a great man. And he was not a great man.' In the flesh, JM Coetzee, the prince of self-reproach, may well second this opinion, but I'll object. Summertime is a great experiment from a fine writer and one day, when he dies a second time, the gap will be too vast to fill.”" - David Astle, Book Show, Radio National

"Summertime is both an elegant request that the sum of Coetzee's existence as a public figure should be looked for only in his writing, and ample evidence, once again, why that request should be honoured." - Thomas Jones, The Guardian

"“... you’ll relish a refreshingly amusing and human foible-ridden story.”" - Qantas, The Australian Way

"Where Summertime evokes South African life in the 1970s, the writing is luminous, revealing intellectual and emotional subtlety of a very high order." - Andrew Riemer, The Sydney Morning Herald

"Boyhood is a deeply-felt and utterly compelling account of a South African childhood: the narrative style is as spare and lean as the Karoo flatlands which form its backdrop" - Daily Telegraph