ANOTHER SUMMER BEFORE . . . .

We're in the midst of a long, hot summer (and in Tucson summers are longer and hotter than in many other places), and with all the things that are happening around the world (in addition to this being a particularly contentious summer-before-the-US-presidential election), a good read is the most refreshing restorative I can think of. I was so happy when a friend surprised me with the loan of Helen Simonson's second novel, The Summer Before the War, since it provided exactly what I needed this week.

A couple of years ago it seemed like remembrances of World War I were everywhere, marking the centennial of the beginning of "the war to end all wars." Of course it didn't achieve that goal. I was deeply moved by film and TV representations of that period: the film based on Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth; the series Crimson Fields, which sadly lasted only one season; and of course Downton Abbey.  But I watched more than I read, until my friend lent me this novel. The Summer Before the War begins like most summers, light and breezy, with the promise of romance and enough conflict in its English village setting to keep things interesting for those of us who don't read stereotypical romance novels.  It also has enormous resonance for our times, when, as in 1914, it seems like the world is falling apart around us.

Beatrice Nash has accepted a position as Latin mistress in the school in Rye, Sussex, though there's never been a female Latin teacher there before. She's recently lost her father, a scholar of some note, and the unpleasant relatives in charge of her inheritance seem determined to cheat her out of it. Though she's only in her early 20s, she has decided never to marry, but to support herself as a teacher but with dreams of becoming a published writer. But interested and interesting young men do appear.

Hugh Graves is a medical student nearly at the end of his surgical training when war is declared and he finds himself enlisting to serve in a field hospital under his mentor, whose daughter, Lucy, Hugh expects to marry. Hugh's cousin Daniel, a poet, does not plan to enlist but rather to start a literary journal with his closest friend. Hugh and Daniel's aunt and uncle, especially Aunt Agatha, play important roles in the lives of all these young people, whose lives wind up going in unexpected directions. Add to that the mayor's obnoxious wife, an influx of Belgian refugees, an expatriate American writer, and Gypsies, and the plot thickens with surprising twists and turns.

Simonson handles all these disparate elements with style and grace, with convincing and engaging characters and locations. The point of view shifts in different chapters from Beatrice to Hugh and back again, with intervals focused on Aunt Agatha and on Snout, the young Gypsy boy who is also Beatrice's best student. There's comedy, romance, and tragedy, all affecting characters the reader will care about. And while in some ways there's a sense of fatalism that may seem all too familiar in today's stressful and fearful times, there is also abundant reason for hope, and for love of all kinds.

This is a beautifully written book that I admire on many levels, but most of all because, in spite of all that can go wrong in the world (and that goes wrong for many of her characters), Simonson reminds us of what is best in us, even though we ourselves may be unaware of it.