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PERSONAL INFORMATION:
Born October 23, 1963, in England; immigrated to United States, c. 1990; daughter of Alan and Margaret Phillips; married, c. 1987; husband's name John F. (a financial executive); children: Ian, Jamie (son). Education: London School of Economics, graduated, c. 1984; State University of New York, Stony Brook Southampton, M.F.A., 2008. Addresses: Home: Bethesda, MD. Agent: Julie Barer, Barer Literary, LLC, 270 Lafayette St., Ste. 1504, New York, NY 10012; fax: 212-691-3540. E-mail: Helen@majorpettigrew.com.
CAREER:
Writer. Worked as advertising copywriter, then executive; formerly affiliated with Celebrity Cruises. Guest on radio programs, including All Things Considered, Diane Rehm Show, and Leonard Lopate Show.
AWARDS:
Chapter One Award, Bronx Writers Center, 2005, for first chapter of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.
WORKS:
WRITINGS:
Contributor to periodicals, including East Hampton Star, North Atlantic Review, Proteus, and Southampton Review. Author's works have been translated into French, German, Italian, and Portuguese.
Sidelights
Helen Simonson has enjoyed unexpected success as a first-time novelist in her mid-forties. After spending years in the advertising industry and then leaving her job to focus on parenting, she began learning her craft in a community writing course and proceeded to M.F.A. studies. In 2005 she won an award for the first chapter of her work-in-progress, and it so impressed an agent that three years later, when Simonson sent her the finished manuscript, the agent quickly took it on. The two worked together to prepare the novel for publication, but when the agent sent it to publishers, she warned Simonson that "it could be weeks before we heard anything," as the author told Rebecca Chastain in an interview for the Number One Novels Web site. The warning proved unnecessary. Simonson related to Chastain that the novel "sold two days later in a preemptive offer from Random House." It has since earned critical praise and become a best seller.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand focuses on the slowly blossoming romance between a dignified retired army officer and a widowed shopkeeper in his small English town. Although he was born in Pakistan and the shopkeeper in England, of Pakistani descent, she is still considered a foreigner and an unsuitable match for the major. Over the course of the novel the two gradually deepen their relationship and find ways to face the opposition of their fellow villagers as well as their own family members.
Simonson's debut won widespread praise. Writing in the Washington Post, Ron Charles described it as "thoroughly charming" and "smart" and highlighted the author's "crisp wit and gentle insight." New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin remarked that on the very first page readers may be smitten by "Simonson's funny, barbed, delightfully winsome storytelling." Admitting the novel's "conventional" structure, Maslin maintained that it "is enjoyable even when it tootles along with mechanical efficiency" and added that it "feels fresh." The critic found the protagonists "especially well drawn." Fellow novelist Alexander McCall Smith, in a review for the New York Times Book Review,considered Major Pettigrew's Last Stand "entertaining and even rather moving." Acknowledging a few "smallish quibbles" with the work, Smith wrote, "if the place is credible, the same isn't always true of the characters," but he went on to note, "a writer clearly having as much fun as Simonson is perhaps entitled to go over the top and exaggerate a bit." He found the book's central love story a "real pleasure" and commented on Simonson's "great sensitivity and delicacy." Yvonne Zipp stated in the Christian Science Monitor that "Simonson's dryly delightful debut" is "one of the most endearing love stories I've read in a long time." Zipp remarked that the author "nails the genteel British comedy of manners with elegant aplomb."
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Helen Simonson
Liz French
Library Journal. 141.5 (Mar. 15, 2016): p135. From Literature Resource Center.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Author Simonson's much-anticipated second book (after her 2010 debut, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand), set in the summer of 1914 as World War I looms, is the LibraryReads top pick for March 2016 as well as an LJ Editors' Spring Pick (ow.ly/YVVEg). The UK-born Brooklyn resident kindly agreed to answer a few email questions about The Summer Before the War.
You've lived for more than three decades in the United States, but both of your novels are set in England. Have you ever considered writing a book set in your adopted country?
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
I love being an American and a New Yorker, but England, and Sussex in particular, will always be an emotional draw for me. When it came time to write a novel, the chance to spend time in England, at least in my head, was irresistible. I also get to enjoy England through rose-colored lenses. If I were there every day I would have to face the reality of rain and warm beer. So when it comes to Brooklyn, I think I might have to leave for some period of time in order to long for all its incredible urban landscapes and people--without remembering the crowded subway, bearded hipsters, or alternate-side-of-the-street parking!
Why the switch from contemporary (Major Pettigrew) to historical? Are you more comfortable in one time period than another? What sort of research did you do?
I don't consider myself a proper historical novelist. I'm just using a historical setting to explore timeless themes (I hope). I did several years of research using memoirs, biographies, history books, and original sources. I spent many weeks at the main New York library, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and the British Library. In London, I got to read original magazines and newspapers from 1914 and see how the war became woven into people's lives, not just in the headlines but in recipes for economical Christmas pudding and the social columns where deaths began to replace marriages and engagements. I'd like to thank all the research librarians who were always so helpful suggesting bibliographies and pulling material for me. I was amazed that all their help was free with a library card--the highest measure of civilization.
Were any of the characters in Summer based on people you know, or on historical figures?
The only character based on a real [historical] figure might have been the writer Mr. Tillingham. I have read much WAR v/ about Henry James and adore his work. In this book, I might have had the Cher Maitre very loosely in mind as I made up Mr. Tillingham. But it being fiction, I was able to take scurrilous liberties. He was the easiest character to write and provided me with much comic relief during difficult times with the rest of the cast.
Did any of your forefathers see combat?
My maternal grandfather was a batman (an officer's servant) in World War I. He never spoke of his service, and my mother could tell me only that she thought my grandfather's officer was killed at the Somme. She has one photo of my grandfather in a uniform that looks a little large for his skinny frame. He and my grandmother were married in 1918, at the end of the war.
Did your time in the ad industry help your writing?
Advertising taught me to write short, edit hard, and find the unique in any project. I still find that training useful today.
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The whole world in a small town
Trisha Ping BookPage. (Apr. 2016): p15. From Literature Resource Center. Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 BookPage http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
As the summer of 1914 draws to a close, 23-year-old Beatrice Nash is headed to East Sussex by train. The small town of Rye doesn't know it yet, but her arrival is about to shake up the status quo--not to mention the lives of town matron Agatha Kent and her two nephews.
In her long-awaited second novel, following the 2011 word-of-mouth hit Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson returns readers to her hometown of Rye, East Sussex--although, as she admits during a phone call to her adopted hometown of Brooklyn, she's able to view it through "somewhat rose-colored glasses. I don't have to put up with the rain or the warm beer, so I'm left to plumb all these deep emotional wells without any of the hindrances of daily, petty annoyances!"
Simonson has spent most of her adult life in the United States, where she moved with her American husband to pursue a career in advertising, and eventually raised two sons. While she loves the States, and visits England often, Simonson admits to "a deep longing for home. I'm one of those people who believes that children need to go out in the world--the farther the better--but those of us who go off to explore are left with a hole ... it's this kind of push-pull situation," she says in a voice that still sounds quite English to this American interviewer.
Simonson's writing also has a distinctly English flavor, but her books are unlikely to be described as "cozy." Though she uses a small-town setting, Simonson is interested in the ways people interact. Her novels are moving but not sentimental--sly comedies of manners that have more in common with Jane Austen than Jan Karon.
"I believe the whole world can be explained in a small town," says Simonson with a laugh--and The Summer Before the War opens up a whole world to readers. From socialites to refugees, this rich, beautifully written social comedy encompasses a range of nationalities and classes and is told from three perspectives. It's the first time Simonson has written from a female point of view.
"There's a long history of women wanting to go out into the world dressed as a man, and that's essentially what I got to do writing Major Pettigrew. So it was funny to come back and write as a woman--I almost felt more exposed."
Writing historical fiction was also a new step for Simonson. Using her hometown--and her fascination with the Edwardian writers Henry James and Edith Wharton, who spent time there--as a touchstone, Simonson decided to "prove myself as a real writer by taking people on a time-travel journey."
That journey begins as Beatrice Nash arrives in Rye. Both prettier and younger than expected, the new teacher is almost immediately required to defend her position-which she desperately needs after the death of her father--against Agatha Kent's scheming society nemesis, Lady Emily. Siding with Agatha and her husband, John, in support of the new teacher are the couple's two nephews, cousins Daniel and Hugh. Carefree poet Daniel is Simonson's homage to "all the young men who went off to war writing poetry," while practical Hugh is completing his surgical training. The two are like sons to the Kents, who never had children of their own, and their relationships with Agatha are among the most compelling in the novel.
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"I was really interested in how difficult it is to be an aunt who would love to be a mother," says Simonson. She adds that she needed distance between Agatha and the two boys for other reasons as well. "As a mother of two sons, I'm just unable to write about the mother of two sons. I think my writing would come across as impossibly cheesy because I love my sons to death and would be totally incapable of writing anything nuanced about them!"
There may not be a better word to describe the characters in The Summer Before the War than "nuanced." Even background players are fully rounded and alive, thanks to Simonson's textured writing. By the time World War I breaks out, the reader knows this community, which makes the "very, very small" approach that Simonson takes to portraying the war feel right.
"When we go to war, I focus very closely on Hugh, working in the hospital. There are no epic battle scenes. By keeping things small and hopefully somewhat mundane, I try to navigate the geography of the battlefield without making any great claims to expertise in discussing war or the pain that it brings people."
Like the best historical fiction, The Summer Before the War not only takes readers back to the past, but also gives them a new perspective on the present. Take Hugh's observation that "spirited debate was the first casualty of any war," or the discussion between Agatha and Beatrice about whether the best way to advance women's rights is to work within the system, or defy it. Perhaps the most topical of these is the Belgian refugee crisis, which is largely forgotten in the U.K. today.
"I had no idea until I read a Henry James essay on the subject that there were Belgian refugees in my hometown," says Simonson. "England took in 250,000 Belgian refugees and housed them and fed them and found them work for four years, all on a charitable basis. Perhaps it's a lesson we could learn from today."
Though there are plenty of lessons to ponder in this novel, it is also very, very funny. The crackling repartee between Agatha and Lady Emily recalls Isobel Crawley and Lady Violet on "Downton Abbey." Hugh and Daniel, close as brothers, "spend endless hours trying to prove the other one wrong," says Simonson, to a reader's delight.
Full of trenchant observations on human nature and featuring a lovable cast of characters, The Summer Before the War is a second novel that satisfies.
THE SUMMER BEFORE THE WAR
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From Penguin Random House
Conversation with Helen Simonson
Random House Reader’s Circle: In your highly anticipated second novel The Summer Before the Waryou transport readers to the small Sussex town of Rye. It’s the summer of 1914, right before the start of World War I, when everything is on the brink of change. what was life like at this time and why did you want to set your story at this moment?
Helen Simonson: I think of Edwardian times in terms of advances in technology—-the telephone, motor car, invention of electricity and flying machines—-and of a loosening of Victorian strictures producing a blossoming of culture and progress. It’s a society rich in writers, poets, and women’s movements for social justice and for suffrage. It’s a historical era in which I always thought I could live well. However, that assumes I would be wealthy. Life was still hard for folks without money. Even in a town like Rye, outdoor toilets, cold water, and coal–burning stoves would have been the norm. Female teachers earned less than factory workers. Education beyond elementary school involved fees, as did medical care. There were still workhouses for the poor, and diseases like rickets and tuberculosis were rife. The more I researched, the more I realized I should try to include some of this reality in a world we associate more with garden parties and elegant hats.
RHRC: You have a very personal connection to Rye, a town rich with literary history. Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Virginia Woolf, and E. F. Benson all lived and worked nearby. What does Rye mean to you and when did you know you had to set your story there?
HS: I lived near Rye during those influential coming–of–age teenage years, and much of my Saturday job money was spent at the local bookshop, where a special bookcase held the works of these “local” writers. Rye is such an extraordinary and ancient town that even the fish–and–chip shop is housed in a fifteenth–century building. For a girl raised in a modern subdivision, moving to Rye was like being dropped into history. For me Rye fairly hums with echoes of its past. Publishing my first book gave me the courage to try to bring the world of Edwardian Rye and its writers to life. I did not know whether I would succeed, but I knew at least that it was a setting I would be happy to live in for months and years.
RHRC: In this novel you write about love, family, class, ambition, and social and gender injustices. Everything is magnified by the war. Why was it important to explore these themes?
HS: In this book I wanted to explore what people think is important to build in their lives and what proves to be of real value when it is actually put to the gravest of tests. Does love remain? What does success or independence or family really mean in the end? And how will we weigh our ambitions and dreams against our duty and our compassion when all is falling apart? What does a war destroy and what does it burnish in the fire? These are timeless questions we still ask today, and I hoped we might learn some lessons from a small piece of our history.
RHRC: We’re instantly drawn into the lives of your characters. It’s hard to choose a favorite because we’re rooting for everyone (well, almost everyone)! Did you find yourself relating to one character or relationship in particular?
HS: I’m closer in age to matriarch Agatha Kent than to young teacher Beatrice Nash, but I remember being young, and none too wealthy, and so I identified very much with Beatrice’s fierce struggle to be her own woman. I related to Agatha both in her long and close marriage to John and in her love for her two nephews (I’ve been married thirty years this year and have two grown sons) and I am not afraid to admit that I have served on my fair share of ladies’ committees! I had the most fun, of course, writing Mr. Tillingham, the famous American writer with his assured sense of his own literary value. I hope readers will love him in all his obnoxious ego!
RHRC: As in Pettigrew, the quintessential English town becomes the stage on which entrenched tradition, class, ignorance, family ties, and love play out. You’ve said that “the whole world can be explained in a small town,” and you use humor to illuminate and process the absurdities of war. Can you elaborate?
HS: I think life is a comedy of manners and that people are generally much the same in their ambitions and their prejudices. While in my last book I explored how people might be similar across divides of ethnicity and culture, in this book I set out to discover just how much of ourselves we might recognize in the denizens of a small English town in 1914. For me, war just concentrates and highlights this theme. Humor then becomes indispensable in holding up to scrutiny the generals and the politicians who might forget their own fallibility while demanding our blind patriotism. Who was not educated and moved while laughing at M*A*S*H? And if you haven’t seen Monty Python’s World War I skits, you should go immediately to YouTube. In some of the small absurdities I present about England going to war, I hope to make readers laugh and reflect at the same time.
RHRC: At the heart of this book is a love story—-a few love stories, actually. There’s love between spouses and friends, new loves and old ones. There are relationships that transcend social and cultural barriers. Why was it important to explore these relationships? How do these relationships grow, adapt and survive?
HS: Love has a funny way of sweeping aside prejudice and breaking down barriers. The ability to love is perhaps our most redeeming quality. It transcends time, politics, and even religion. As my characters struggled to love in difficult circumstances I hoped my readers would share their joy and their pain and come away reflecting on the place of love in their own lives.
RHRC: Let’s talk about your strong female characters. You’ve given us two inspiring heroines in Agatha Kent, a sharp–witted force for progress, and Beatrice Nash, the town’s first female Latin teacher, who faces numerous challenges. Two women at very different stages in life, from different backgrounds and with different ideals. Why do we connect with both?
HS: I had to do some quiet sitting and thinking about how I as the writer could be loyal to two women at such different stages in their lives. In channeling Beatrice I was forced to revisit myself as an awkward young woman, and it was an eye–opening experience. I think we forget to look back at where we came from. I was glad of the chance to be kind to my younger self and to recognize her achievements while chuckling at her failings. Agatha was an immediate connection, though I am now laughing, because she has failings I did not see in first writing her, and that’s surely a function of not seeing my own flaws.
RHRC: Speaking of women, how did the war affect the position of women in society when men began to enlist? How challenging was it for women to do any work of importance, especially during the war, when men controlled almost everything?
HS: As a novelist and not a historian, I can only remark on what resonated with me during my research. The war effort in the U.K. seemed to be built almost entirely from scratch, and so it was funny that the vast efforts of Britain’s women were still initially considered “amateur” while men received official credit. The Voluntary Aid Detachment and the Red Cross, for example, were staffed by full–time female volunteers who left their families for the dangerous work of nursing. Women raised funds and set up mobile first–aid stations and canteens, and were laughed at even as the troops in transit to the front gratefully accepted hot tea, food, and medical attention. Large efforts such as the national system of War Relief Committees and Refugee Aid were all nominally headed by important men, while the bulk of the work was done by the ladies. Only as the dearth of men became more apparent did Britain realize it had a resource in its women, and so they began to fill in at munitions factories, on the buses, and even in quasi–military messenger services such as the one Alice Finch sets up.
RHRC: What was the research process like for you? What did you find most surprising about this time in English history? And when was it time to leave the research behind and listen to the characters in your head?
HS: Writers are lousy and distracted researchers, but I’ve always loved magazines, and my most compelling research experience was sitting in the British Library’s periodicals section and paging through original copies of Country Life and The Lady for 1914 and 1915. The war was not telegraphed on the front pages as in the news-papers, but it began to show up: in recipes for economical Christmas puddings and how to make do without a meat course at dinner. And of course it also made it into the social columns, when notice of engagements and marriages began to be replaced with the words “was to have been married” as Britain’s finest young peers began to fall in the trenches. And the more I researched, the more I became aware—-and surprised and horrified—-at how much the war galvanized the cause of women. In 1918, British women got the vote—-as a thanks for their work and presumably to make up for the lack of available husbands. They got to wear pants and drive buses and eat in the street and go abroad without a chaperone . . . and though at the end of the war most of the paid work went away, women were never going to go back to the strictures under which they had lived before.
RHRC: In Pettigrew, you wrote about contemporary England. In The Summer Before the War, you take us back to 1914. Is it more of a challenge to write about the past? How was writing this novel different from your first?
HS: As a child, what I loved most about books is that they take us to places and times we can not visit ourselves. I wanted to be shipwrecked on a Pacific atoll and to join an expedition to the planet Mars; and I wanted to time travel to the past and the future. As an adult I am still fascinated by the power of fiction to stretch the imagination and to transport us. Casting about for a setting for my second novel, it struck me that perhaps I was now qualified to attempt a bit of transporting. Of course, it was much harder work to try to fully research the time period, and then to set all the historical notes aside and allow the story to emerge on its own. I tried to transport myself back in time, and I hope readers will feel they are walking beside me in Edwardian Sussex.
RHRC: Helen, you published your first book at age forty–five. Tell us a little bit about your life before writing and the moment when you knew you had to become a writer.
HS: I was in advertising for a while, and then I decided to become a stay–at–home mom. I was looking for some small intellectual escape from the diapers and baby–gym sessions when I stumbled into a friend who said he was writing his screenplay. I remember being very taken aback that an accountant would dare to try to be some sort of writer. But then I realized that this is America, where everyone is -allowed “a dollar and a dream,” as the New York Lottery used to promise. The next day I signed up for a beginner fiction class at New York’s 92nd Street Y. It took me many years of struggle before I published my first book, and though I wanted to be a writer from that very first class, I don’t think I believed I would be one until I saw my novel in a bookstore.
Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. An important subject in The Summer Before the War is women’s lives: their role and limits, and how women work within and against Edwardian strictures. Do you think we can take any modern lessons from these women’s lives?
2. Beatrice and Celeste both idolize their fathers. However, are they both betrayed? Do all the characters place too much trust in father figures? Do you think this a useful metaphor for England as it goes to war?
3. Why do we love the Edwardian era so much? Is it the gentility and supposed innocence of the age? Does this attraction remain for you after reading The Summer Before the War?
4. The author presents two strong women in the characters of Beatrice Nash and Agatha Kent. How are they similar and different? Why do you think the author chose to present both voices?
5. Who is your favorite character and what draws you to him or her in particular? Whom do you dislike in the book, and does he or she have redeeming features?
6. The author has said she thinks the whole world can be explained in a small town. Did she succeed at that in this book? What do you think can or cannot be described and explained within such a setting?
7. Though The Summer Before the War is set in Edwardian En-gland, did you recognize elements of your own town, city, or -social circle in this novel? Could the good ladies and gentlemen of Rye only exist in England, or are such characters found everywhere?
8. Why are books about war so compelling? Do you agree with Beatrice that no writer can ever write about war in a way that will prevent it? Is it a valuable topic anyway?
9. Did The Summer Before the War change what you knew or how you thought of the First World War? How so?
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From Lit Lovers
Summary
The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set.
East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful.
Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything.
And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.
When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.
But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end.
For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1964-65
• Where—England, UK
• Education—London School of Economics; M.F.A., State University of New York,
at Stony Brook
• Currently—lives in Washington, DC,
Helen Simonson is the author of two novels, The Last Stand of Major Pettigrew (2010) and The Summer Before the War (2016). Though living in America, Simonson was born and raised in England.
She grew up near Rye, a 14th century smuggling port from which the sea receded long ago. The town is now surrounded by marshland, the very place Charles Dickens' Pip, from Great Expectations, started off on his journey to manhood. Rye is situated in East Sussex, a county of medieval villages, seaside towns, and high grassy bluffs known as the South Downs. Simonson considers it her ideal of home.
But over the past three decades Simonson has lived in the U.S.—first, as a long-time and proud resident of Brooklyn, New York, and more recently in the Washington D.C. area.
As a young woman, Simonson was eager to head to London for college and, later, to move across the pond to America. Yet she has always carried with her a deep longing for home. "I think this dichotomy—between the desire for home and the urge to leave—is of central interest to my life and my writing," she has said. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
If you’ve been wanting more Downton Abbey, this book is for you. Helen Simonson’s success with Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand continues with her second novel—this one peering into the insular English village of Rye. It is the summer before World War I, and the villagers, ruled over by Lady Marbely, are blissfully ignorant that their lives are about to change, irrevocably, as the world balances on the cusp of a long and brutal war. READ MORE.
Cara Kless - LitLovers
It is clear from the beginning who the favored characters are, and we can be assured they will end up satisfactorily. The book is prettily written, with charming descriptions and bits of historical detail.... [The Latin teacher and her admirer, who prizes her intellect above his ambition, are too self-aware. When they do a good deed, they probe themselves for hidden selfish motives. It is as if Jane Austen’s Emma had kept fretting that perhaps she should mind her own business. Rather than making characters sympathetic, this virtuous quirk prevents the reader from discovering the mild contradictions in human nature. And that is what we travel to social-comedy land to enjoy.
Judith Martin - New York Times Book Review
The Summer Before the War [like Simonson's Major Pettigrew] is also a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community. The novel’s amusing dialogue enlivens its compelling storyline.... [But ] despite the rib-tickling levity, though, this comedy of manners is also a serious novel about class cruelty on and off the battlefield.
Carol Memmott - Washington Post
[G]ender, class, and social mores...at the dawn of World War I.... Simonson’s writing is restrained but effective, especially when making quiet revelations. A heartbreaking but satisfying ending...about [class systems that] unfairly limit people and their potential.
Publishers Weekly
Simonson's episodic descriptions of life in Rye as the war looms...with a touch of romance. The book falters a bit when it switches away from Rye to cover life in the trenches, and the climax there feels a bit melodramatic, but Simonson's good-hearted, likable characters make up for these weaknesses —Mara Bandy, Champaign P.L., IL
Library Journal
A bright confection of a book morphs into a story of dignity and backbone....another comedy of manners nestled in a British village. This time [Simonson] deepens the gravitas and fattens the story, which begins on the cusp of World War I....beautifully plotted and morally astute.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. An important subject in The Summer Before the War is women’s lives: their role and limits, and how women work within and against Edwardian strictures. Do you think we can take any modern lessons from these women’s lives?
2. Beatrice and Celeste both idolize their fathers. However, are they both betrayed? Do all the characters place too much trust in father figures? Do you think this a useful metaphor for England as it goes to war?
3. Why do we love the Edwardian era so much? Is it the gentility and supposed innocence of the age? Does this attraction remain for you after reading The Summer Before the War?
4. The author presents two strong women in the characters of Beatrice Nash and Agatha Kent. How are they similar and different? Why do you think the author chose to present both voices?
5. Who is your favorite character and what draws you to him or her in particular? Whom do you dislike in the book, and does he or she have redeeming features?
6. The author has said she thinks the whole world can be explained in a small town. Did she succeed at that in this book? What do you think can or cannot be described and explained within such a setting?
7. Though The Summer Before the War is set in Edwardian England, did you recognize elements of your own town, city, or -social circle in this novel? Could the good ladies and gentlemen of Rye only exist in England, or are such characters found everywhere?
8. Why are books about war so compelling? Do you agree with Beatrice that no writer can ever write about war in a way that will prevent it? Is it a valuable topic anyway?
9. Did The Summer Before the War change what you knew or how you thought of the First World War? How so?
(Questions issued by the publisher).
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Summer Before the War…then take off on your own:i
1. Talk about the status of women's rights (or the lack of) during the setting of The Summer Before the War. What prejudices does Beatrice, as a woman, have to confront?
2. Comparisons of Simonson's book have been made to the television series Downton Abbey. What parallels do you see? Consider class and gender issues, as well as the effect of the war on the staid Edwardian sensibilities.
3. How would you describe Beatrice Nash? Why does Beatrice reject the idea of marriage?
4. Some of Simonson's dialogue is very funny. Find a few of the quips for fun...but also talk about the serious realities that underlie their surface humor. Consider, for example, this one about the arrival of Belgium refugees: "It is quite impossible to ask our ladies to take absolute peasants into their own houses, however charming their wooden clogs." Underneath its humor, what does it reveal about societal mores?
5. Talk about the incidents of cruelty, both on and off the battlefield. What might Simonson be hinting at when it comes to the cruelty of organized warfare vs. a "peaceful" village society engaged in rivalry for civic boards and pageants...or guns vs. sarcasm?
6. Describe the gruesome conditions and suffering in the battlefield trenches. How does the novel juxtapose that suffering with the naivete of the villagers back home?
7. Talk about how the rigid class attitudes were changed by the war. Hugh Grange, for instance, thinks that the "earthbound ruffians formed as indelible a part of England’s fabled backbone as any boys from Eton’s playing fields."
(This set of questions is by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Book trailer from a library
American Experience on PBS had a very interesting program on the Great War -- I believe it has been on before, I just watched Part I last week
It's from a different perspective than the novel we are reading, but it was very interesting ....
TV series about nurses in the Great War
Anzac Girls: When folks think about the people involved in wars, they usually think about the soldiers who fight the battles. Often forgotten are others in the war zones performing different, but still important, duties. "ANZAC Girls" tells rarely told true stories of nurses who served with the Australian Army Nursing Service during World War I. The tales describe nurses who rose to meet the challenges of their profession while witnessing the brutality and heroism associated with war. The series is based on Peter Rees' book "The Other Anzacs," in addition to diaries, letters, photographs and other historical documents.
The Crimson Fields: Doctors, nurses, and women volunteers work together in a tented field hospital to heal the bodies and souls of men wounded in the Great War. It becomes clear that no training could have prepared the volunteer nurses Kitty Trevelyan, Flora Marshall and Rosalie Berwick for this work, but a breath of fresh air soon arrives at the hospital in the form of Sister Joan Livesey, a disarming and spirited nurse with a decided mischievous edge.
