I received Franziska Gansler’s Eternal Summer months ago and it’s taken me this long to read and put into words what I think is a brilliant classic novel. It had me hanging on every word with the flavor of Toni Morrison’s Baby and the closeness to character I felt reading J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.
Eternal Summer is a translated work by a debut author born in Germany. This short 162 page novel feels like an apocalyptic, dystopian novel, but reads like nonfiction now. Gansler’s work is poetic, dire, and intense in its description of a wildfire threatening to overtake Bad Heim, the town she lives in as well as her family’s hotel that she runs. The wildfire is a character that echoes the embers in main character Iris’ soul, which becomes lit again when meeting a young mother named Doris and her daughter Ilya. The raging fire outside is emblematic of Iris’ past which is rekindled when she meets this mother daughter duo who is escaping the fires and her abusive relationship with Doris’s husband and Ilya’s father.
A commenter on GoodReads says it is, “cinematic,” and I agree. I could vision each scene playing out. Another commenter says that Gansler has complete control over the novel and I felt this as well. I was very much in the novel wanting to keep reading, but also not wanting it to end.
Gansler’s words are also beautiful. Here is a snippet:
“Ash and embers were everywhere, and the leaves of the red maple had curled up like caterpillars, hard and black at the edges. I felt as if I were standing in a field of wheat, watching a gathering storm. Soon the storm would sweep away everything around me, but for the moment there were only the massing clouds and the wheat swaying in the wind.”
As someone who escaped the Lahaina fires by a month, and was in LA during these catastrophic wildfires this year, I know these words too well. Her words were at times, too close to home. I wanted this to be an escape novel, not the reality that we are living in.
At the same time, books like these are important as a reflection of our current life. It is a reminder of why we need to keep doing what we can to help the planet. I am grateful for books like these that mirror our growing climate change realities and hope it encourages others to be a part of positive change for the good of the earth and everyone in it.
Read anything good lately? Have you read this book? I would love to hear your recommendations and also what you thought of it? If you’re interested in purchasing a copy, consider getting it at your local bookshop or Bookshop.org that supports local bookshops.