Two Summers by Glenn Patterson
A pair of novellas, set over two pivotal summers in the lives of two young men from Belfast, recall the constraints of the place where they were born and the times in which they are living. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, TWO SUMMERS is for anyone who has ever been young.
Summer on the Road: It’s 1980 and in the last summer before his A levels Mark lands a job he didn’t even know he had applied for, sweeping streets for Belfast City Council. Called ‘binman’ by his schoolfriends, ‘snooty’ by his workmates, he can’t imagine anything less like a holiday. Day by day, though, navigating bomb scares, punishing hangovers, broken television sets and a loving but chaotic home life, he begins to glimpse a path all his own, even if he can’t see yet where exactly it is going to lead.
Last Summer of the Shangri-Las: Three years earlier Gem has driven his mother to the brink. She packs him off to stay with his aunt in New York during the infernal heat of the summer of 1977. It’s the summer too of disco, of punk, the summer of Sam, and Elvis dead on the bathroom floor. For Gem though it will forever after be the summer he met Vivien – as rooted in the city as he is adrift; the summer he stumbled on Mary, Liz and Margie, three-quarters of the greatest New York group of all (and they’d fight anyone who said otherwise); the summer he learned how to go home. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, Two Summers is for anyone who has ever been young.
A pair of novellas, set over two pivotal summers in the lives of two young men from Belfast, recall the constraints of the place where they were born and the times in which they are living. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, TWO SUMMERS is for anyone who has ever been young.
Summer on the Road: It’s 1980 and in the last summer before his A levels Mark lands a job he didn’t even know he had applied for, sweeping streets for Belfast City Council. Called ‘binman’ by his schoolfriends, ‘snooty’ by his workmates, he can’t imagine anything less like a holiday. Day by day, though, navigating bomb scares, punishing hangovers, broken television sets and a loving but chaotic home life, he begins to glimpse a path all his own, even if he can’t see yet where exactly it is going to lead.
Last Summer of the Shangri-Las: Three years earlier Gem has driven his mother to the brink. She packs him off to stay with his aunt in New York during the infernal heat of the summer of 1977. It’s the summer too of disco, of punk, the summer of Sam, and Elvis dead on the bathroom floor. For Gem though it will forever after be the summer he met Vivien – as rooted in the city as he is adrift; the summer he stumbled on Mary, Liz and Margie, three-quarters of the greatest New York group of all (and they’d fight anyone who said otherwise); the summer he learned how to go home. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, Two Summers is for anyone who has ever been young.
A pair of novellas, set over two pivotal summers in the lives of two young men from Belfast, recall the constraints of the place where they were born and the times in which they are living. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, TWO SUMMERS is for anyone who has ever been young.
Summer on the Road: It’s 1980 and in the last summer before his A levels Mark lands a job he didn’t even know he had applied for, sweeping streets for Belfast City Council. Called ‘binman’ by his schoolfriends, ‘snooty’ by his workmates, he can’t imagine anything less like a holiday. Day by day, though, navigating bomb scares, punishing hangovers, broken television sets and a loving but chaotic home life, he begins to glimpse a path all his own, even if he can’t see yet where exactly it is going to lead.
Last Summer of the Shangri-Las: Three years earlier Gem has driven his mother to the brink. She packs him off to stay with his aunt in New York during the infernal heat of the summer of 1977. It’s the summer too of disco, of punk, the summer of Sam, and Elvis dead on the bathroom floor. For Gem though it will forever after be the summer he met Vivien – as rooted in the city as he is adrift; the summer he stumbled on Mary, Liz and Margie, three-quarters of the greatest New York group of all (and they’d fight anyone who said otherwise); the summer he learned how to go home. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, Two Summers is for anyone who has ever been young.
About the Author
Glenn Patterson, award-winning writer and broadcaster, was born in Belfast in 1961. He is the author of nine novels: Burning Your Own (1988), Fat Lad (1992), Black Night at Big Thunder Mountain (1995), The International (1999), Number 5 (2003), That Which Was (2004), The Third Party (2007), The Mill for Grinding Old People Young (2012), and The Rest Just Follows (2014), and a memoir, Once Upon a Hill: Love in Troubled Times (2008). A previous collection of journalistic writings, Lapsed Protestant, was published by New Island in 2006. His most recent work of non-fiction, Here’s Me Here, was published by New Island in 2015. He lives here, or there.
Praise for Two Summers
‘A pair of novellas so good they could both have easily run to full length’
— The Irish Times
Publisher: New Island Books
Date Published: 13 September 2023
Paperback, 208 pages
ISBN: 9781848408982
