Invincible Summer by Alice Adams

Invincible Summer is a story about friendship, ambition and loyalty, and how people’s expectations change over the course of their lives, or in this case the twenty years between Chapter One and the end of the book.

Eva, Benedict, Sylvie and Lucien are four friends in Bristol who have been meeting up regularly and are now on the brink of new things. Eva has an internship at a London bank; Benedict is embarking on a doctorate that will put him at the forefront of physics research; brother and sister, Sylvie and Lucien, are planning a trip to India.

Slowly the reader learns of Eva’s unrequited fascination for Lucien, while Benedict pines for Eva, and of party-girl Sylvie’s hopes of being taken seriously as an artist. Lucien makes a good income in nefarious ways. The shifting sands of their relationships form the backbone of the plot while in the background are world events we can all remember - the dawn of the new Millennium; the suicide bombers of September 11; the collapse of the financial markets in 2009. The hedonistic London club scene and Eva's hectic career as a trader contrast nicely with more bucolic episodes set in Corfu and Languedoc. And the summers whiz past.

Each character is put through the mill, making mistakes that throw their lives off-course until by the end of the book, they have grown up enough to make some sensible decisions. The title comes from these words from Albert Camus: In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there lay within me an invincible summer, which fits nicely with the way the friends overcome difficulties in their lives and their occasional meetings in summery settings.

Alice Adams has created a page turner that kept me reading in spite of the lengthy time span and the less-than-original cast of characters. What she does really well is create people you care about, giving them challenges and building towards a satisfying resolution. This is a debut novel and I shall look forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Invincible Summer