"Because life doesn't work that way. You can do everything perfectly. Do everything that you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve. Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense."
-Jack to his daughter, Mikki
I have been trying to finish this one for at least 6 weeks, not because it was so challenging; to the contrary, it was an easy read. I just had to keep putting it aside to finish other things, the last two book club selections and research for the class I was teaching. Compared to all of those, One Summer was a breeze.
At the beginning of the novel main character Jack Armstrong has a terminal disease and is making preparations for his death. By a cruel twist of fate, his wife dies in a tragic accident. But Jack makes a sudden, inexplicable recovery to the point of being labeled "Miracle Man" by some. Thinking they would be orphans, Jack has already had their three children "farmed out" to grandparents. Now Jack wants to get his kids back, move them to the South Carolina coast (his wife's childhood home which he has inherited) and try to make a good life for them all.
Short chapters and familiar subject matter made this one pretty easy to read, as I mentioned, especially after finishing The Space Between Us with foreign words and phrases of India and The Wright Brothers with quite a lot of technical details. The plot is fairly predictable and simplistic. I will give it a rating of 3: pretty good but I doubt it will stay with me for long.
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