In Summer Light

by Zibby Oneal

Kate feels overshadowed by her famous artist father, Marcus Brewer, but one summer is coaxed out of her shell by graduate student Ian Jackson, who discovers her own artistic talent

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Romance, Realistic Fiction, Read For School, Coming Of Age, Childrens

149 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Zibby Oneal was born on March 17, 1934, in Omaha, Nebraska. "My mother loved books, both for their content and because they are beautiful objects. Our house was full of them. She read aloud to us a great deal. I can remember finding it miraculous that she could look at the strange black marks on a page and see a story there. I planned to fill pages with black marks of my own as soon as I learned how to make them. Wanting to write goes back that far anyway."

"[Our] house ... was full of paintings as well, and though I am no artist, I think in terms of color and composition. All my books have begun with a picture in mind--a character and a place visualized. When I can see these things clearly--almost as if they were a painting on a wall--then I can begin to write about them."

Reviews

[Audrey (Warped Shelves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still wonderful and enchanting the third time around!

Older now, I was a bit annoyed by Kate's disposition: constant whining, woe-is-me attitude. Her self-centered small-mindedness was slightly frustrating. However, this behavior sharply contrasts her emotional maturation and really serves to bring the coming-of-age element of this story into focus.

Today, as a more rounded reader, I really appreciate the craft of Oneal's storytelling, and her diction. Every piece of this story falls into place just right, every sentence has meaning, no words are wasted.

I love this book and I will never be done loving it.


POPSUGAR 2021 Reading Challenge: A book about art or an artist
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It has been about five years since I first read this book, and I can honestly say that In Summer Light is still just as enjoyable as it was when I was fourteen!

For an older book, In Summer Light still carries relevance in its characters and voice. Although this book was given to me by my mom (who got it from her brother's then-girlfriend) it still has a strong feeling of modernity.

My favorite part of this story is definitely the atmosphere. Zibby Oneal creates absolutely fantastic atmosphere; she paints vivid pictures with her words, and leaves me enamored with such simple, elegant prose.

Honestly, I have the name Zibby on my list of favorite names (for future cats or children) just because I enjoy Oneal's In Summer Light so much! I definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a short, cute little YA story.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.

This 1985 coming of age novel is the story of Kate, the daughter of a famous artist, who returns home from boarding school with mononucleosis and must, against her wishes, spend the summer with her family. Most disgusting to her about her stay at home is her father’s attitude toward everyone around him, as though they live to serve his whims. Kate has been subject to this treatment herself, as her father once painted a picture of her, and then dismissed her presence in it, stating that it didn’t matter whom or what was in the picture, because it was the painting style, not the subject, that was important. Kate’s resentment over this and other slights has caused her to stop painting altogether, and it’s also making it difficult to write her paper on the Tempest, since Prospero reminds her so much of her father. The only bright spot in the summer is Ian, the graduate student staying with the family while he researches Kate’s father. Kate admires Ian, and respects his opinion, and before the summer is over, she falls in love with him and with painting all over again.

This novel is rather serious in tone, and highly introspective. O’Neal uses beautiful, direct, language to paint very specific pictures in the reader’s mind of each of the characters, Kate’s home, and especially her father’s artwork and attitude surrounding it. Because the narration is in third person, there is sometimes a feeling of distance or disconnection from Kate, but the reader never stops being invested in the story at any point. Kate’s anger toward her father, and her desire to make her own decisions and to have an identity separate from her dad’s create such interesting moments of inner conflict that the reader can’t help but keep reading, if only to enjoy the emotional rollercoaster. Kate’s feelings for Ian also contribute to those ups and downs by adding a layer of tension to the story, and providing the middle ground between Kate’s hurt feelings and her father’s continual cold shoulder.

I read a brief “report” on this book in Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, which is what inspired me to read it, but I had no idea I would love it so much. The story is predictable in many ways and follows a certain formula I think many coming-of-age stories adhere to, but every word is so carefully chosen, and there are many gorgeous passages that I actually read aloud to myself so I could enjoy the language that much more. Though it’s cataloged as juvenile fiction in my library system, the only comparisons I could really make in terms of subject matter were to YA titles like That Summer, Up a Road Slowly, and A Separate Peace. I think it would appeal to readers who like those, and I also think it would work well in a classroom setting. There is so much to analyze and so much to learn in just O’Neal’s writing alone.

What a disappointment that a book like this is out of print! I can’t name very many contemporary realistic fiction coming-of-age novels, so maybe it’s a genre that has fallen by the wayside in children’s literature in recent years, but this book is so well-written, and really not very dated at all, so it’s hard to believe there wouldn’t still be a market for it. If you can get your hands on a copy, give it to strong readers in grades 5 to 8 who like literary, complex stories about family life, growing up, and moving on.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate planned to spend her summer on Long Island with her best friend, Leah, but when Kate is struck with mono, she is sent away from her boarding school, back to Massachusetts to stay with her mother, sister, and famous father. Kate resents her family, the island, her father's paintings, and especially her father. But as the summer passes and Kate reads Shakespeare's Tempest, she sees her father in a different light, as Prospero, overbearing and overpowering presence on the island, and Kate doesn't know whether to love or hate him for the similarities. And as Kate spends more and more time with Ian, a graduate student putting together biographical information on Kate's father, Kate's feelings about her family and her own relationship with art slowly begin to evolve.
This was a fantastic book that I happened upon in the young adult section at the library. It had all the elements of my desired summer reading: teenage angst, islands, and estranged family members. The book didn't disappoint. The writing was beautiful and the characters and plot drew me in from the first page. This was a quick but poignant summer read.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of what I expected from a modern teen classic. It's more about finding yourself than it is about finding your true love, and I enjoyed the self-discovery aspect immensely. The love angle wasn't half as well described as the girl's yearning to paint pictures. And the relationship (or lack of) between the girl and her father was superbly depicted--not in a preachy, "telling the story" kind of way, but in the best tradition of uncovering the truth by "showing the story." Superb.

Not that I'd call this a great book, but it was well worth the 99 cents plus four dollars shipping and handling I paid for it. I wish these mail order places didn't need to handle things quite so much.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

PAINTING. ROCKS. PROSPERO.

[Allegra S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way Zibby O'neal writes emotion with so much authenticity. I adore this book, it resonated really well for me.

[Guilherme Semionato · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro muito especial, e esquecido, mesmo nos Estados Unidos, sua terra natal.

Kate tem 17 anos, pega mononucleose, fica toda molenga (quem teve essa meleca depois de velho sabe!) e vai passar uma temporada na casa dos pais, numa ilha em Massachussetts, para se recuperar. A doença é o menor dos problemas dela: seu pai é um pintor de imenso prestígio, que coloca tudo que está ao redor na sombra. A mãe, que pintava, não pinta mais. Kate, que também pintava, deixou de pintar e agora pretende cursar literatura. A casa é um templo a celebrar o pai. A paisagem da ilha parece que existe só para ele pintar (e que ironia ele se prestar às telas mais abstratas e não às figurativas). Esse pai é um personagem fabuloso: é egocêntrico, mas não é autoritário; tem momentos de egoísmo monstruoso, mas não é um monstro. Tudo se curva a ele naturalmente, mas Kate não se curvará mais.

Ian, um rapaz de uns 25 anos, aparece na ilha para catalogar as obras do pai de Kate. Ian e Kate, juntos, formam um dos (não) casais mais bonitos que eu já li. Eles conversam, e as palavras que trocam são tão cálidas que parecem carícias. Em determinado momento, Kate e Ian compartilham a quietude de um fim de tarde como um "sorvete de luz de limão e damasco". Kate vai reencontrando sua vocação artística e, ao fim do livro, está pronta para tomar sua própria vida nas mãos. Um pouco por causa de Ian, mas é mesmo por causa de si mesma. Para pintores e não pintores, tudo na vida é questão de perspectiva. O modo como ela vai preenchendo sua vida de propósito, imersa em semanas e mais semanas de um verão paradisíaco, realmente me emocionou. É o tipo de livro que eu amo ler e escrever: uma história quieta com coisas muito fortes borbulhando embaixo da superfície. Vou revisitar este livro a cada alguns anos e já me sinto obrigado a publicar este trem no Brasil.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent coming-of-age story about a young woman (Kate) who finds her place in the world and what she loves during the summer before her senior year. Affected with mono, she spends the summer at home, bored and in a tense relationship with her father. Her father is a famous artist, and constantly immersed in his work, leaving Kate feeling chagrined because she feels like she can't connect to him or his art. She even shuns her own artistic abilities because of her relationship with him.

For two months, a graduate student named Ian Jackson, shows up to work with her father. He uproots Kate's boring summer into finding her comfortable place and presses her to revise her ideals about the world around her, including her relationship with her father.

It's an interesting story - and at only 150 some pages, it tells a rather direct one. The characters are true to life and the ire that Kate feels is realistically portrayed. It does feel like it's aged quite a bit over time (The mention of Princess Diana made me realize just how much time has passed. This was written only a year after I was born.), but it still tells the story it was meant to tell.

After reading it, I still feel that more could've came from it, but I can't complain given the subject matter, and just how Kate finally finds her passion without bearing grudges in tow. I liked the chemistry between Ian and Kate, and I wish the author could've delved into that more, but I think it's appropriate for the group its intended for.

All in all, a pleasant read.

Overall score: 3/5

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this shortly after I finished reading Blue Heron, and they were perfect companions. Perfectly paced novel of the desire to please that never really goes away, rather, it transfigures into something more palatable as the years go by.

[Liz S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was inspired by that Shelf Discovery book to pick this up again, about 15+ years after I first read it. I'm glad I did; it's still a really simple, lovely story about a girl coming into her own during an idyllic summer on Martha's Vineyard. YA lit at its best.

[neishagrl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the relaxed way this short novel was written. And yet, it didn't feel short for how many details and feelings were inserted into this lovely, sweet story of growing and learning. Thank you Zibby.

[Lisbeth Solberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores the emotional dynamics of a family of artists: father, successful, domineering; mother, manquee, docile; daughter, just discovering herself.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of this book is really excellent - but after a while its use of The Tempest as a parallel became somewhat wearing.

[Elizabeth Lund]

Really interesting dynamics between the characters. I found the summer-long high school paper a bit weird.

[Geena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never wrote a review for this. It was one of those books I got from our not-so-local-library's book sale and only thought to read it when I had completely burned through the books I had borrowed from the same library.

The most striking memory I have of this book and the desire to punch the protagonist's jerk of a father. Lord, I don't think - at that point - I had ever encountered a father so insensitive to his daughter's needs that I wanted to jump into the book and defend her from his malice. It's probably the sole reason I haven't re-read this book since I finished almost fourteen years ago.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book 35 years ago, and it has traveled with me from apartment to apartment to house to house to apartment to house to house. Finally this week, I picked it up, trying to remember why I ever acquired it in the first place. Now I know. It’s gorgeously written and so wise. I can’t believe that I waited 35 years to finally bend its spine.

[Cheryl]

I don't know how badly I want to read this.
If I do, and like it, I should add it to Art & Artist's thread in Children's Books group.

Mostly curious because author, after it was published, realized that she was drawing on folklore motifs, "something suspiciously like Sleeping Beauty," which especially dismayed her as she despises stories with passive females.

[Jonathan Wasilewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, this book is one of the best books I've ever read! The vivid language that Zibby Oneal painted drew me in, just like the paintings the character's father does. This is also not a long book, so I was able to finish in around three hours.

[Stephanie A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely little novella reflecting the author's own background, with a lot of artistic commentary on light and color woven into the text even as Kate insists that she's going to be an English major now, not an artist, and she doesn't paint anymore. At times it's almost too concise -- there are some very abrupt scene changes I didn't realize had happened from one paragraph to the next, and other periods of time that are too summarily dismissed with things like "and then suddenly we were there" or "the next two weeks passed..." I also felt like her friend Leah kind of breezed in and out without ever really making a strong impression as a character.

But overall, though I could have done with fewer references to the housekeeper's child being "toad-like" (were you working out a real life grudge from childhood or something??), the writing is pretty enough that I disappeared inside this story entirely, limited though the scope of the setting is. While Ian is only part of her summer of self-reflection and rediscovery, her crush on him is handled tastefully, in the way age difference often was in this era -- he doesn't deny attraction to her once she finally puts it out there, but also knows he's still too old for her and doesn't cross the line. It allows them to enjoy each other's company for the limited time they have it and part with a fond farewell, and allows me to get my shippy kicks guilt-free.

I especially like that she spends much of summer worrying about a term paper she needs to write on The Tempest, frustrated by the fact that she can't stand Prospero, who reminds her of her father. She does eventually come to some interesting conclusions about both the man and the character, which is the kind of thing I always think is helpful when you're a student reading Shakespeare for class yourself (see also: King Lear in my beloved I-will-never-shut-up-about-it Final Grades).

Kate read over the last few sentences of the paper she had written that morning. "It is wrong, morally, politically, humanly wrong for a ruler to ignore the needs of his people. To use others for his own purpose with no concern for the cost to them is unforgivable. Prospero is guilty of these things."

She had meant to end the paper there, with this indictment, like a trial lawyer summing up her case. But now she hesitated. Looking down over the yellowing grass in the meadow, she sat for a long time before finally picking up her pencil.

"And yet at the end of the play, Prospero has become an old man. His magic powers are nearly gone, and then they are gone entirely. In the epilogue he asks us to set him free. I think Shakespeare means for us to forgive him. I think he means that if we refuse, we will be trapped like Prospero was, on his island."

Kate read this over. In a way, it messed up her conclusion, her neat case. She wasn't even sure it was true. Maybe Shakespeare meant no such thing. But it was what she meant, so she left it.

It was extra serendipitous that I had just read another book that included references to this play and Prospero's role in it (The Bookshop of Yesterdays), so despite not having read the play myself I really delighted in the parallels.

P.S. Unrelated, but one thing I can't get out of my head is how sorry I felt for Kate's mother, a classic case of a housewife diminishing her own artistic aspirations to support her domineering husband's (even Kate comments at one point, "You get lonely, don't you?" as the mother of one teen who is off at boarding school, a 10-year-old rapidly finding her own interests, and little company beyond the part-time housekeeper when her husband is consumed by his work, isolated as they are on their island property). I hope that she's the kind of (eventual) widow who really blossoms when she has to stand on her own, rather than wilts.

(I don't mean to be morbid, I just have a terrible habit of thinking about Where The Characters Are Now when I read books that were written 30+ years ago, especially when the characters in question were over 40.)

[Martine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un très beau roman court, qui allie une force d'évocation à une grande accessibilité pour décrire un moment unique dans la vie d'une jeune fille, un réajustement des croyances sur la vie, l'amour (de la famille et dans le couple) et sa propre valeur.

Lu quand j'étais ado, sans trop me souvenir de ce qui s'y passait, j'en gardais un souvenir doux et apaisant qui n'a pas été démenti.

[American Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in 7th grade I rated it 5 stars. I don't remember this book at all.
30 years later I just read it again -- all in one day! It was wonderful!!! lovely!!! While a few things were vaguely familiar, I don't remember my thoughts on the book at all. I finished it being so curious what 12-year-old me thought about it. Did 12-year-old me even understand it?? I was so young, how could I have understood it? 42-year-old me absolutely loved it! 4.5 stars!

[Elizabeth]

Nicely done YA novel about teenager and artist father.