Reviewed by Lily Lamb
TITLE: Summer Symphony
AUTHOR: Brandon Shire
PUBLISHER: TPG Books
LENGTH: 164 pages
BLURB: Martin Zoric had vivid dreams of fatherhood, of a small hand pressed to his, of pink dresses and girlish laughter. Then his wife had a stillbirth and his world fell apart.
He listened to the unwanted apologies, stood by his wife as was expected of him, and kept his façade strong and firm for the entire world to see.
But does he have the strength let go and really grieve?
When Ren Wakahisa landed in Croatia he was hoping to escape the cultural pressures put on him to conform. His family wanted him to forsake love for duty. They viewed his happiness as secondary to familial prosperity.
Does he have the courage to be who he wants to be? Or, will he yield to their wishes?
Summer Symphony is the story of how two men find their answers and what they learn about strength, and grace, and the endurance of love
REVIEW: Beautiful writing style with complex characters interwoven with layers and layers of interesting dynamics between people. There are parts that left me sad and tearful, especially about Martin’s grief. The writer described and explained Martin’s grief exceptionally well. I could almost see myself grabbing the baby-cot in despair. Until Ren Wakahisa turned up, Martin’s response to his grief and his reaction to his colleagues were almost repetitive to the point that I found myself getting somewhat bored. There was almost nothing happening as Martin was not allowing himself to grieve as he needed to which in a way was reflecting Martin’s internal world but from my perspective as a reader, I wanted a little more here like perhaps more emotions.
After Ren came this stunted dialogue and emotion continued a little more but the story picked up a little with Ren getting harassed by his mother to marry along with him also getting ill.
I was feeling rather impatient that the romance was not happening in the story until well past the midway but by then I was so happy that something else was happening other than despair from their perspective and some boredom from my side.
I find the story stunted a little and it was lacking in emotions other than unhappiness and grief.
I feel that Ren and Martin needed a little more love and bonding scenes between them because they got together so sudden. There was hardly any build up and then they were making really hard and tough decisions.
The complex relationship between Martin and his wife was just that…very complex with many layers. Whenever I thought I was understanding the dynamics of their relationship, the writer introduced something else. As you can imagine the complexity became even more complex when Ren and Martin’s wife met. But after reading the the very end of the story convinced me that this story reminded me of an art nouveau or Indie movie.
I am not sure whether I liked Martin and his wife’s personality traits because both of them seemed to struggle with adjusting to what life throws at them and then move on. The very, very end, certainly convinced me of this. Nevertheless, these characters felt real too after all how many of us struggle with adjusting to changes when the universe challenges us? The melodramatic toned end complemented the whole story, its characters and their dialogue. This is a different kind of story. It really is like watching an Indie movie where the characters spoke a lot, think and talk a lot which I found it refreshing.
RATING: 
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