SUMMER SONS BY LEE MANDELO

SUMMER SONS BY LEE MANDELO [BOOK REVIEW]

22/11/2021

‘Summer Sons’ is immensely readable and thoroughly engaging from the very start, remaining unpredictable and unputdownable until the final page. Its strong characters and unique setting enhance what could have been just another Southern gothic horror thriller and delivers something far more interesting.

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 125079028X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250790286

Book Review by Richard Martin

Lee Mandelo’s debut novel tells a horror-tinged murder mystery story, set during a sweltering summer in Nashville, Tennessee where themes of grief, friendship and sexuality combine with street racing, dark academia and family curses to deliver one of 2021s most unique and engaging books.

Eddie and Andrew are inseparable friends until Eddie accepts a place on a graduate program at the prestigious Vanderbilt University, studying local folklore. Andrew is excited to join him later in the year and is confused by Eddie’s seeming reluctance for him to begin attending. When Andrew learns that Eddie committed suicide under mysterious circumstances, he travels to his student home to learn more about the life he had created for himself, and to find answers about his friend’s unexpected death.

As Andrew meets Eddie’s housemate Riley and new friends, including the dangerous and enigmatic Halse, he begins investigating the work he had been doing at the University leading up to his death. He becomes embroiled in a gang of street racers and finds himself in the middle of sordid academic conspiracies, all clues to Eddie’s apparent suicide, and which may be linked to a traumatic childhood incident that changed both boys’ lives forever.

For a character who only features via occasional flashbacks, and almost entirely as someone only spoken about by the other characters, Eddie’s presence looms large over every aspect of this book. He is the conduit via which the books’ themes are explored and, particularly in the early sections of the book, the driving narrative force. While the book gradually shifts to focus on Andrew as he not only begins to discover more about the circumstances of Eddie’s death but also journeys closer towards his acceptance of it, this book begins being all about Eddie, insofar as our lead characters experiences revolve around him at the outset. It’s a testament to how talented a writer Mandelo is that you find yourself so heavily invested in a character you technically never meet.

Our protagonist, Andrew, is equally engaging and is our relatable, but not always likeable, guide through Summer Sons. When we meet him, his grief is almost palpable and you get a sense early on that there was far more to his and Eddie’s relationship than simple friendship. One of the most heart-breaking elements of the book was watching Andrew sort through his feelings about Eddie through the lens of mourning. Mandelo doesn’t allow her lead to wallow, however, and Andrew develops a great deal as a character as the story progresses and the character we meet at the beginning is irrevocable changed by the final page. Whether for better or worse isn’t something I’ll be spoiling here. He seems most comfortable and at home in the seamier elements of his investigations (the parties, the street racing) but equally is more than intelligent enough to navigate the different (but no less perilous) pitfalls of academic studies and the back-stabbing and double-dealing that comes with it.

While the melding of the book’s seemingly disparate elements makes for a unique premise, it also has the unfortunate side effect of making the book feel overstuffed at times. There is an engaging and emotionally charged story at the book’s core of a friendship that, in retrospect, promised to eventually develop into something more, and a thoroughly engaging murder mystery that comes out of that friendship. Throw in some classic literary academia, a southern gothic setting, a side-line of the seedy underbelly of drug dealing and drag racing and a supernatural element involving hauntings and curses, and there is an awful lot going here. That's without getting into the book’s tackling of issues of class and institutionalised racism.

As a horror fan first and foremost, it pains me to say it, but it's the supernatural elements that often feel the most jarring or out of place. Lift this part out and you are still left with all the book’s strongest elements (Eddie, his friendship with Andrew, the murder mystery and Andrew’s journey of self-discovery with Halse and Riley) and perhaps most tellingly, very little impact on the story being told. When it works, it provides a creepy ambience and some tension but it is effective mostly as a metaphor for the complex relationship Eddie and Andrew shared, or a manifestation of Andrew’s grief, and tales of family curses and latent supernatural powers don't always mesh well with the other, more grounded elements in play.

This is a minor quibble, however, noticeable only because everything else works so well. There will likely be some element of the book that will hook any reader, and ‘Summer Sons’ is immensely readable and thoroughly engaging from the very start, remaining unpredictable and unputdownable until the final page. Its strong characters and unique setting enhance what could have been just another Southern gothic horror thriller and delivers something far more interesting. I’m left genuinely excited to see what Mandelo follows this up with.

4 Stars

SUMMER SONS BY LEE MANDELO

One-third The Sound and the Fury, one-third The Fast and the Furious, and one-third The Secret History, Lee Mandelo's debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic. Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him. As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers to possess him.