A Summer to Decide

A Summer To Decide concludes Pamela Hansford Johnson’s highly acclaimed trilogy, the first two volumes of which are Too Dear For My Possessing and An Avenue Of Stone . Helena, the presiding genius of the trilogy, dies near the outset of this book, leaving only her indomitable spirit to help her children struggle on without her. For her daughter, Charmian, having just given birth to a daughter herself, and trapped in a marriage to the now drunken and womanizing Evan, it is truly a struggle; one which is relieved only by her absorption in her child, by Evan’s inevitable downfall, and by the passionate concern of her half-brother, Claud. Pamela Hansford Johnson is in confident control of her art and in all her characters – in Evan and his pathetic mother, in Charmian and Claud – she gives us the true and deep understanding of human nature which enriches all her novels. ‘A most impressive achievement’ Isabel Quigley, Biographer