The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
Written by Madeleine L'Engle
Narrated by Pamela Almand
4/5
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About this audiobook
A poignant meditation on the bonds between mothers and daughters—and the inescapable effects of time—from the author of A Wrinkle in Time.
In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine L’Engle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for L’Engle’s ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mother’s health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, L’Engle describes the gifts and graces, as well as the painful emotional cost, of caring for the one who once cared for you.
As she spends her days with a mother who barely resembles the competent and vigorous woman who bore and raised her, L’Engle delves into her memories, reflecting on the lives of the strong women in her family’s history. Evoking both personal experiences and universal themes, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother takes an unflinching look at diminishment and death, all the while celebrating the wonder of life.
Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) was the Newbery Medal-winning author of more than 60 books, including the much-loved A Wrinkle in Time. Born in 1918, L'Engle grew up in New York City, Switzerland, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Her father was a reporter and her mother had studied to be a pianist, and their house was always full of musicians and theater people. L'Engle graduated cum laude from Smith College, then returned to New York to work in the theater. While touring with a play, she wrote her first book, The Small Rain, originally published in 1945. She met her future husband, Hugh Franklin, when they both appeared in The Cherry Orchard. Upon becoming Mrs. Franklin, L'Engle gave up the stage in favor of the typewriter. In the years her three children were growing up, she wrote four more novels. Hugh Franklin temporarily retired from the theater, and the family moved to western Connecticut and for ten years ran a general store. Her book Meet the Austins, an American Library Association Notable Children's Book of 1960, was based on this experience. Her science fantasy classic A Wrinkle in Time was awarded the 1963 Newbery Medal. Two companion novels, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet (a Newbery Honor book), complete what has come to be known as The Time Trilogy, a series that continues to grow in popularity with a new generation of readers. Her 1980 book A Ring of Endless Light won the Newbery Honor. L'Engle passed away in 2007 in Litchfield, Connecticut.
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Reviews for The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
142 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After reading, and enjoying the first of the Crosswicks Journals, 'A Circle of Quiet', I was pleased to be able to borrow the second of them from a friend. This is the story of the summer when Madeleine L'Engle's mother was in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, frail and forgetful, yet still an important member of the family.
The book consists of reflections about the past, anecdotes from the author's childhood, stories she had heard about her mother and her own grandparents and many other relatives. I found the number of different people mentioned to be a bit overwhelming and easily lost track of who was whom - but nonetheless, enjoyed the writing. It's thoughtful, sometimes moving, and gives an intriguing picture of the simpler life of the previous decades.
Recommended. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5L'Engle's memoir of the summer her 90-year-old mother took a steep decline into dementia (and ultimately passed away). I reacted to this book on three different and almost entirely separate levels:
1. It is impossible for me to talk about this book without mentioning the fact that my 89-year-old grandmother is currently undergoing a similar (but slower) decline. Some parts were eerily, almost uncomfortably familiar -- both the ways her mother is affected by her dementia and L'Engle's reactions to the situation. Her insights and... I want to say "confessions," often brought tears to my eyes. If this is not something you've experienced, I don't know whether this book would touch you the way it touched me, though L'Engle's gift of storytelling makes it possible. Which brings me to...
2. This book brought home to me exactly (or nearly) how good a writer L'Engle really is. I became familiar with her writing as a preteen and always knew there was something special about her books, but about few of them do I have any sort of adult perspective. The Summer of the Great-Grandmother is a memoir, and yet it reads like a novel in the best way. The characters are complex and deep; L'Engle must have a gift of understanding other people to bring them alive the way she does. Ironically, it's harder to write about real people in a vivid way than it is to write about characters. The combination, here, of that fictional character depth with factual recounting was startlingly effective.
3. As someone who is very, very well acquainted with L'Engle's oeuvre, I also found it fascinating to see how much in her stories is pulled from her real life. Which is not to discount or denigrate those stories; she blends her real experiences with fiction in a completely seamless way. But on almost every page I encountered a plot point, a place, or a name that was familiar from her novels, and it always made me smile. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pretty good. Better than part one.