Review by New York Times Review
THOUGH ITS TITLE comes from the French - Camus's well-worn "In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there lay within me an invincible summer" - Alice Adams's irresistible debut novel falls squarely into that most English of genres: the comedy of manners. Bringing to mind exemplars of the form - from "Persuasion" to "The Emperor's Children" - though ultimately falling short of their heights, "Invincible Summer" concerns four friends who meet in 1994 at the University of Bristol and follows them over two decades as they drift in and out of one another's lives. We first encounter Eva, Benedict, Sylvie and Lucien lolling about on a grassy hill, drinking wine and discussing, in typical undergrad style, the meaning of life. Eva, artless and unfashionable, was raised by a gender studies instructor who "eschewed 'Dad' as a title, imbued as it was with patriarchal associations of authority." Benedict, who pines for Eva, hails from the actual patriarchy: He's the son of a lord. At their redbrick university, he hides his posh background, not just from "Comrade" Eva, but also from the glamorous siblings Sylvie and Lucien, the privations of whose upbringing have made them as angry and reckless as Eva and Benedict are placid and cautious. Lucien - who's not actually enrolled at the university and on whom Eva harbors an unhealthy crush - is the sort of drug dealer who refers to himself as an "entrepreneur." Sylvie, a painter, possesses "a prodigious . . . talent," "striking good looks" and "a certain shine, a vividness" that lead the other three to find it "impossible to imagine her being anything other than a great success." After graduation, Eva shocks her friends and father by taking a job as a derivatives trader at a large investment bank and reinventing herself as a sleek sophisticate in a "tailored suit waving down waiters and asking for mineral water by brand." Benedict stays in Bristol, completes a Ph.D. in physics, marries and moves to Geneva to work at CERN, all the while dreaming of Eva. Lucien makes a fortune peddling drugs in London's thriving rave scene - though he now calls himself a "promoter" - while Sylvie flounders. "In these days of pickled sharks and soiled bedclothes," Sylvie's realist paintings hold no interest for London gallerists. Soon, she and Eva - who's brokering huge deals and bringing home huge bonuses - can barely suffer through a drink together. This, of course, barely touches on the twists of Adams's densely plotted tale. A crackerjack storyteller who deeply inhabits her characters - deploying pitch-perfect dialogue to poignant and hilarious effect - Adams uses the conventions of the form to examine larger ideas about class and commerce, art and science, friendship and family at the time of the most recent fin de siècle. Ultimately, though, this is a novel that strives to define a generation - the one known, ominously, as X - and it falters when Adams overreaches, struggling to establish her characters as representatives of their era, shaped by the historical events of their day. As when Benedict and Eva, in the fall of 2001, gaze out into the night sky, "thinking about this new world in which planes flew into towers" and that "there were men who so hated their world that they were willing to die a spectacular death to make their point." Or when Eva gives heavy-handed voice to Adams's overarching question. "What was the spirit of our age?" she asks. Though the definition at which Eva eventually arrives - "We cared, but not enough" - rings true, this charming novel derives its power less from its author's reductive attempts at answers and more from her restless questioning. JOANNA RAKOFF is the author of "A Fortunate Age," a novel, and a memoir, "My Salinger Year."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 10, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
In the summer of 1995, four British university students part ways after graduation, thinking they'll always be a group, despite the fact there's really very little that holds them together. Wealthy Benedict has been pining after Eva for four years, hoping she'll take her eyes off of the rakish Lucien long enough to notice he's been waiting in the wings. Lucien's sister, Sylvie, has no real ambition other than to be an artist, whatever that really means. Over the years, the friends are pulled apart and brought together multiple times in different ways as real life takes over. The novel moves chronologically through the next two decades, finding Benedict marrying a fellow researcher, Eva getting a high-powered trading job in London against her progressive father's wishes, and the siblings mucking about without much ambition. Adams' debut is an interesting and thoughtful character study that examines the finer points of long-term friendship.--Vnuk, Rebecca Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Adams's fun and memorable debut is a tale of the friendship of four British college chums. Working-class Eva falls in with a magnetic pair of siblings, rakish Lucien and artistic Sylvie. Sylvie's trajectory to success (according to the group) seemed "inevitable" due to "a certain shine, a vividness about her... causing people to cluster around her." And finally there is Benedict: wealthy, humble, and a talented student of physics. Upon graduation in 1997, Eva, Sylvie, and Lucien head to London, where Eva has secured a traineeship at an investment bank, while Benedict stays behind in Bristol for a Ph.D. That summer, just prior to Eva starting her adult life, Benedict invites Eva to his family's vacation home in Greece and almost manages to make a move on her, wondering, "Did she genuinely not know how beautiful she was?" From there, the story follows the group chronologically through the years as they make choices that bring them by turns closer to and further from each other and from the dreams they'd had as students. Adams's characters have many ups and downs, disappointments and adjustments, but they are believable due to her understated exposition of the characters' psychologies. The reader will stick with the book, not from a real sense of jeopardy about how things will turn out, but because the characters are such good company. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
[DEBUT]It's 1997 in Bristol, England, and four carefree college chums are graduating from university. Their world is filled with promise and as their futures begin to unfold the four know that they'll always have one another to help face what life has in store. Of course, the group scatters: physics grad Eva abandons her socialist background for the world of high finance; fellow physics geek Benedict, long besotted with Eva, remains at university to pursue a PhD; and siblings Sylvie and Lucien embrace bohemian lifestyles-she as an artist and he as a club promoter and occasional drug dealer. Over the next 20 years, the friends drift apart, reconnect, slip in and out of one another's lives, then return to the challenges of navigating adulthood alone, one crisis at a time. Verdict Debut author Adams has crafted a light, charming tale of love, loss, and the lasting power of friendship. The format of the book occasionally feels jarring-each chapter jumps forward in time, sometimes by months, sometimes years-and readers are left wondering where and when they are. But the characters are engaging and one cannot help but care about them. All in all, a perfect summer read. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.] -Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Adams' sensitive debut follows a tightknit quartet of college friends as they navigate their shifting relationshipsand evolving identitiesover the course of two decades. After graduating from university in Bristol, Benedict, Eva, Sylvie, and Sylvie's brother, Lucien (technically not a student but a group member nonetheless), are on the cusp of their futures. Eva, a quietly rebellious physics grad, is poised to start a fancy finance job in London. Benedictposh, studious, and in love with heris staying on for a Ph.D. Artistic and free-spirited, Sylvie is off to travel for a year with Lucien, a caddish playboy who has long monopolized Eva's romantic attentions. The world seems alight with possibility; their bond feels unshakable. But as the years pass, and the disappointments of adulthood accumulate, the ties that once bound them begin to fray. Once, they hiked through Spain together; as they approach their 30s, they meet occasionally for distracted lunches and harried drinks. Their lives don't look the way they'd imagined they would: despite her talent, Sylvie isn't famous; despite their connection, Benedict and Eva haven't ended up together. And thenone personal crisis at a timethe four friends find their ways back to each other, forging new relationships that are deeper and more complicated than the ones they'd had at school. Adams doesn't stray far from convention here, but it hardly matters: her characters are nearly impossible not to root for, and she captures their often troubled dynamics with tremendous empathy and charming wit. And while the novel wraps up just a touch too neatlythe resolution isn't quite as much fun as the strugglethere is something pleasantly satisfying about its profound sense of hope. Breezy with substance; an absorbing summer read. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
