PPRL: A Summons to Memphis, by Peter Taylor

There's not much to criticize about A Summons To Memphis. But there's not much to get too excited about, either. Reading it is like listening to your favorite middle-aged, genteel Southern friend pontificate at length over a limoncello. Tone and themes are thoroughly, decidedly Southern. Class (division), manners and etiquette, race, intergenerational angst. It starts plodding, then gets interesting, then turns plodding again, then gets real interesting for a strong finish. The blurb on the cover really says it best:

"We finish the novel feeling we've not only come to know his characters, but also come to share their inner truths."

Whether or not I want it to, every novel has some element that I find deeply relatable. Often I find it heartening, and encouraging. Sometimes it's to my chagrin. Sometimes it just makes me say, "Huh. How about that." In this one, it's the degree of relief Philip feels in having (mostly) escaped the drama of his family of origin. Also the joy of his simple, sweet, two-person life in New York with Holly:

"As for Holly and me, I don't know what the end is to be for two people like us. We have our serenity of course and we have Memphis and Cleveland out of our lives. Those places mean nothing to us nowadays. And surely there is nothing in the world that can interfere with the peace and quiet of life in our tenth-floor apartment. I have the fantasy that when we get too old to continue in the magazine and book trade the two of us, white-haired and with trembly hands, will go on puttering amongst our papers and books until when the dusk of some winter day fades into darkness we'll fail to put on the lights in these rooms of ours, and when the sun shines in the next morning there will be simply no trace of us."

That doesn't sound so bad.

Also relatable: the way in which Philip's father loomed larger than life for the whole of his, until in his dotage the man revealed himself to be, simply, a human being wanting to be understood and loved.

study/paper questions

Pick a relationship in the novel and present a case for why it's the strongest/most noble/truest (the sisters, Philip and his father, George and Alex, Holly and Philip, etc.)

Consider Georgie's (minor) role in the novel. He comprises so little of the story that Taylor could well enough have left the character out. So why didn't he? What does Georgie have to teach us? How does he provide context and depth to the rest of the family?

Explore the constant contrasting of Memphis and Nashville. What (or who) could the two cities be said to represent?