Short stories
That Summer and Other Stories
Frank Sargeson · 1946
Synopsis
At the heart of the collection is a long story: Bill, a young farm labourer, makes his way to the city at the height of the Depression. He gets by thanks to friendships between men, first with Ted, a boy with whom he goes swimming, then with Terry, an older man, whom he accompanies to the races and the pub. Around this story are brief tales set between the two wars, mostly during the slump, in which itinerant labourers and unemployed men appear, rendered in their own speech.
Context
The long story first appeared as a serial, in 1943 and 1944, in The Penguin New Writing, edited by John Lehmann; it was published on its own in Paris in 1946, in a translation by Jeanne Fournier-Pargoire, and the same year in this collection. Its author wrote to a friend that the complete absence of heterosexuality would intrigue or anger many readers; the feeling that binds the two men went unnoticed for a long time. Critics have praised the social realism and the economy of language of these stories.
Who it is for
Only the long narrative appeared in French, in 1946, under the title Cet été-là. Everything comes through the narrator's spoken voice.
Prizes and reception
Duncan McLean sees in it the culmination of his first manner; the long story is its centrepiece and the most discussed.
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