The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

Written by Madeleine l'Engle

Narrated by Pamela Almand

A poignant meditation on the bonds between mothers and daughters—and the inescapable effects of time—from the author of A Wrinkle in Time.

In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine L’Engle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for L’Engle’s ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mother’s health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, L’Engle describes the gifts and graces, as well as the painful emotional cost, of caring for the one who once cared for you.

As she spends her days with a mother who barely resembles the competent and vigorous woman who bore and raised her, L’Engle delves into her memories, reflecting on the lives of the strong women in her family’s history. Evoking both personal experiences and universal themes, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother takes an unflinching look at diminishment and death, all the while celebrating the wonder of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jan 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543629415

Madeleine l'Engle

Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) was an American author of more than sixty books, including novels for children and adults, poetry, and religious meditations. Her best-known work, A Wrinkle in Time, one of the most beloved young adult books of the twentieth century and a Newbery Medal winner, has sold more than fourteen million copies since its publication in 1962. Her other novels include A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Ring of Endless Light. Born in New York City, L’Engle graduated from Smith College and worked in theater, where she met her husband, actor Hugh Franklin. L’Engle documented her marriage and family life in the four-book autobiographical series, the Crosswicks Journals. She also served as librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan for more than thirty years.  

Reviews for The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

[sueincyprus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After reading, and enjoying the first of the Crosswicks Journals, 'A Circle of Quiet', I was pleased to be able to borrow the second of them from a friend. This is the story of the summer when Madeleine L'Engle's mother was in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, frail and forgetful, yet still an important member of the family.

The book consists of reflections about the past, anecdotes from the author's childhood, stories she had heard about her mother and her own grandparents and many other relatives. I found the number of different people mentioned to be a bit overwhelming and easily lost track of who was whom - but nonetheless, enjoyed the writing. It's thoughtful, sometimes moving, and gives an intriguing picture of the simpler life of the previous decades.

Recommended.

[ellen6w · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

L'Engle's memoir of the summer her 90-year-old mother took a steep decline into dementia (and ultimately passed away). I reacted to this book on three different and almost entirely separate levels:

1. It is impossible for me to talk about this book without mentioning the fact that my 89-year-old grandmother is currently undergoing a similar (but slower) decline. Some parts were eerily, almost uncomfortably familiar -- both the ways her mother is affected by her dementia and L'Engle's reactions to the situation. Her insights and... I want to say "confessions," often brought tears to my eyes. If this is not something you've experienced, I don't know whether this book would touch you the way it touched me, though L'Engle's gift of storytelling makes it possible. Which brings me to...

2. This book brought home to me exactly (or nearly) how good a writer L'Engle really is. I became familiar with her writing as a preteen and always knew there was something special about her books, but about few of them do I have any sort of adult perspective. The Summer of the Great-Grandmother is a memoir, and yet it reads like a novel in the best way. The characters are complex and deep; L'Engle must have a gift of understanding other people to bring them alive the way she does. Ironically, it's harder to write about real people in a vivid way than it is to write about characters. The combination, here, of that fictional character depth with factual recounting was startlingly effective.

3. As someone who is very, very well acquainted with L'Engle's oeuvre, I also found it fascinating to see how much in her stories is pulled from her real life. Which is not to discount or denigrate those stories; she blends her real experiences with fiction in a completely seamless way. But on almost every page I encountered a plot point, a place, or a name that was familiar from her novels, and it always made me smile.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Pretty good. Better than part one.