That Summer

Book excerpt: In That Summer, Allen Drury turns from the world of international politics to the private politics of Greenmont, an exclusive vacation colony high in the California Sierras where an intense love story is played out against tribal country-club mores and tragic social pressures. Greenmont is a millionaire’s hideaway, a super-civilized encampment for the privileged few, but dangerous currents run beneath its affluent exterior. Major Bill Steele arrives there as an outsider, lonely and shaken after a painful and humiliating divorce. He is fleeing his own personal demons, but the people of Greenmont have their own plans for him. They see him as the perfect final solution to the increasingly serious problem of their favorite daughter, Elizavetta—at 35, kind and pretty, but unmarried. Major Steele tries to establish a gentle friendship with Eliza, recognizing that her emotions are as complicated and defenseless as his own. The people of Greenmont make it clear to the Major that friendship is not enough. From nasty small skirmishes, Allen Drury draws his vicious little society into a ruthless battle of frightening proportions and violent consequences. That Summer is the most personal and passionate book from one of America’s master novelists.