The Summer of the Bear: A Novel

by Bella Pollen

Hardcover, 2011

Call number

FIC POL

Collection

Publication

Atlantic Monthly Press (2011), Edition: First American Edition, 1st Printing, 448 pages

Description

When a Cold War diplomat dies under suspicious circumstances and is promptly declared a mole, the man's wife relocates to a remote Scottish island, where her steadfast youngest child discovers a marooned grizzly bear and uncovers truths about his father's activities.

Media reviews

The Washington Post
Inspired by the real-life adventures of a domesticated bear in the Hebrides when Pollen was a child, “The Summer of the Bear” is a novel that defies classification. Told primarily from the viewpoints of Letty’s three children, it is, on one level, a coming-of-age story that explores the world
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through the eyes of a doggedly innocent child. However, as the plot unfolds to reveal the truth behind the death of Nicky Fleming, it slips increasingly into the trope of a Cold War thriller, while the voice of the escaped bear lends a touch of fairy-tale whimsy.
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2 more
Not the easy-going beach read you might expect, this eccentrically conceived novel requires patience to crack. Once the storyline settles, it's hard not to be drawn in.
García Márquez meets le Carré meets—well, A.A. Milne at times, with hints of William Golding at others. In her moving, beautifully written fifth novel, Pollen (Midnight Cactus, 2006, etc.) serves up an improbable mix that, on the face, seems as if it shouldn’t work. ... A sensitive and
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literate story told on several levels, all of them believable—if some of them improbable, too.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member tammydotts
The Fleming family retreats to a family cottage in the Outer Hebrides following the death of Nick Fleming in 1980s West Germany. Accusations of treason and a suicide note from the diplomat lead his wife to question how well she knew her husband while her two daughters struggle to define themselves
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and her young son leaves clues for his “lost” father to find the family. As the Flemings arrive on the island, a tamed bear escapes from his owner and hides out in a sea cave. A strange connection forms between bear and boy as Bella Pollen weaves a sleepy sort of magic in The Summer of the Bear.

The novel moves at a well measured pace: slow but designed to capture readers. Pollen creates a world to spend time in. When she brings the main plot threads together, it’s with a feeling of moving the characters along to whatever waits for them after the last page is turned.

Pollen’s chapters alternate perspectives among the Fleming family. Letty pieces together evidence of Nick’s treason while shutting herself away from her children. Georgia, the older daughter, accompanied her father on a trip to East Berlin and knows something about the secrets he was keeping. Alba, the middle child, uses anger to keep her feelings at bay. Jamie is the special one; his mind doesn’t work the way it should and it takes him a long while to understand his father isn’t lost, but dead.

The characters could be written easily as stereotypes. The two daughters struggle to emerge as fully realized characters, with only Georgia achieving that successfully. Letty and Jamie, however, are very real. Jamie’s mental disabilities – which are never categorized clearly – could have made him too precious, but Pollen grounds his differences in having Jamie just be a child, fighting with his sister and looking for proof that his bear is real.

Jamie and his father were supposed to go to the circus on the day Nick died. Among the attractions was a bear act, and when Jamie sees a truck advertising a performing bear on the family’s trip to the island, he decides the bear will help him find his father.

The bear feels a connection to Jamie as well, and Pollen checks in with the bear in short chapters that may be too anthropomorphic for some readers but can be explained by the bear’s time with humans. Pollen stops short of delivering magic realism, but doesn’t offer explanations for everything either.

The Summer of the Bear has some flaws. The answers to Nick’s treasonous behaviors seem like an afterthought as the novel increases tension about Jamie and the bear. What Nick may or may not have done gives the other characters something else to do. An environmental MacGuffin near the end of the novel provides an excuse for Letty to leave the family cottage and not much else.

But the flaws are minor or, at least, don’t negate the engaging story Pollen tells. The Summer of the Bear is a novel to relish and to mourn when the last page is read.
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LibraryThing member celticlady53
The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen is a very interesting story about a family dealing with the loss of the father in the family. The novel takes place on the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in the summer of 1979.This story is told in alternating chapters by the members of the Fleming family and by
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the circus bear. Yes the bear in this story has thoughts. The circus bear escapes from his handler while swimming in the ocean. Georgie, the eldest daughter feels that she is responsible for the death of her father, Alba the middle child hates everyone, especially her younger brother Jamie. Jamie does not believe that his father is dead because his father promised to return, he thinks that his father was a spy and hopes that the bear, if he can find him, may be able to help him find out the truth. Other parts of the story are told in flashbacks mostly by the mother Letty and Georgie. Letty remembers how she and Nick met and Georgie about the time she went with her father to Germany.

A tense, engrossing, magical story on the island that Letty grew up on and some of the local characters that live on the island. A very enjoyable read.
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LibraryThing member frisbeesage
Summer of the Bear begins with the death of Nicky Flemming. Working in the British Embassy in Germany, his accidental fall from the top of the embassy seems anything but accidental. The government agents assigned to investigate suspect suicide, saying that Nicky could have been a mole who was about
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to be caught. Stunned and prfoundly confused his wife, Letty, flees with their 3 children to her childhood summer home on an island in Scotland. There Letty falls into a numb cycle of trying to pretend she is ok while her mind runs constantly over the past looking for clues to Nicky's secret life. Meanwhile her children struggle too, Georgie with an overwhelming sense of guilt, Alba with pure and furious anger, and brilliant but simple Jamie with confusion. If his dad is lost it means he'll return one day, but why is it taking so long? In the end a crisis on the island along with an escaped bear brings everything to a head, revealing the children's struggles and answering the questions surrounding Nicky's death in a wholly unexpected way.

More than anything I found Summer of the Bear to be a meditation on grief, the many differnt ways that people exerience it and how we can eventually come to live with it. Letty's sense of having been betrayed, Jamie's total denial that his dad is gone, Alba's unmitigated fury at everything, and Georgie's quiet guilt all show us the full range of emotions at the loose of a loved one. Set against the lonely and isolated backdrop of the island you can fully feel the hole Nicky has left in the life of his family. The mystery of his death adds some spark and helps keep the story moving forward and the fantasy of the bear helps it move to a conclusion. The story stalls a bit in the middle but picks up at the again with a great ending.
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LibraryThing member Beamis12
3 1/2 but a somewhat magical, albeit at times slow paced book. When their father who is with the diplomatic corp. falls to his death, letty and the three children retreat to the Hebrides in Scotland. Jamie, the eight year old and is a character I loved, cannot distinguish letters and words, but is
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intelligent nontheless. He believes in things that are magical and loves bears. Good read told by alternating viewpoints, but Jamie makes the book come alive.
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LibraryThing member nicx27
I loved this book. From the blurb it sounded as though it might be a bit quirky, but really it wasn't and what it turned into was a life-affirming story of a family coping with the loss of a husband/father.

I thought the way the author brought the real life story of the bear being lost on the
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island and wove a whole story around it was very clever.

This book has nice short chapters, which always make a story move quicker for me. It really exceeded my expectations and I found it a very satisfying read. I enjoyed the short bits about diplomatic life and I particularly liked the parts about life on the island and highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member cfk
The apparent suicide of a British foreign service officer creates immediate suspicion that he was the source of leaks from the Bonn office. His wife and 3 children leave Bonn under a cloud of suspicion to return to her home in the Hebrides.

Georgie, oldest daughter at 17, is the 'good child' even
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as she struggles with confusing images from her one trip into East Berlin with her Dad. Alba, the middle child at 14, hates everyone, but especially her younger brother, Jamie. Jamie is different--he processes information in a quirky and unique way and communicates in ways which lead Alba to call him "retard" and vent the bulk of her hate an anger on him.

Jamie refuses to believe that his Father is gone forever and decides that he most be on a secret mission. The bear of this story is an escaped 'pet
of a performer and keeps watch over Jamie.

Strange, but satisfying ending.
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LibraryThing member travel.bug
A cute little book about a family that have lost their father who is accused of being a spy. They go back to an island in the outer Hebrides and the boy believes his father has come back as a bear to find him.
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
Initially found this book too whimsical and nearly abandoned it after a few pages. Then had another stab at it and enjoyed it. The bear did not really come alive for me but I enjoyed both being in the Outer Hebrides and the Bonn, Berlin, London interludes.The structure of the book worked well -
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better than the content which was OK but a bit sentimental. James was written very well the whole way through, Georgina came alive eventually, but Alba and the mother Letty sounded like two sides of the author herself and probably suffered from a lack of insight.
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LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
A family portrait/spy novel mashup that works very well. Beautifully characterized. I thought the author did a particularly good job with the children.
LibraryThing member Nickelini
It's the summer of 1979, and Letty is reeling from the sudden death of her soulmate and husband, and struggling to hold her family together -- there is sensible late-teen Georgina, who is going through new feelings her mother is clueless about; Alba the angry middle child who rebels against
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everyone and everything; and innocent 8 year old James who has some unnamed cognitive disorder that makes him understand the world in a literal and odd way. So Letty flees with her children to the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, her lifelong safe place.

Her husband worked for the British government in Bonn, and had constant secret dealings with East Germany. His death by fall from a building is viewed with suspicion. Did he commit espionage and then suicide? Was he murdered? How did he come to fall to his unexpected death?

And what about the escaped from the circus grizzly bear on the island? How is it speaking to young James? Is his lost father inhabiting the bear?

Short chapters and shifts between threads keep this story moving to a satisfying ending that wraps them all together.

Rating: Somewhere between 4 & 4.5 so I'll tip up to 4.5 stars.

Recommended for: people in the mood for a good story more than stunning prose and deep thoughts.

Why I Read This Now: A good friend recommended this, so I ordered it from England as it was a bit of an unusual book to find here on the west coast of Canada. I haven't heard of it or the author anywhere else. When I thanked her for it, she said that she stumbled on to it too but didn't say how (I'll ask her next time I see her). She spent some time in the Orkneys a few years ago so maybe she picked it up in Scotland.
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LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
Initially found this book too whimsical and nearly abandoned it after a few pages. Then had another stab at it and enjoyed it. The bear did not really come alive for me but I enjoyed both being in the Outer Hebrides and the Bonn, Berlin, London interludes.The structure of the book worked well -
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better than the content which was OK but a bit sentimental. James was written very well the whole way through, Georgina came alive eventually, but Alba and the mother Letty sounded like two sides of the author herself and probably suffered from a lack of insight.
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Awards

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards (Shortlist — Fiction — 2011)

Pages

448

ISBN

0802119743 / 9780802119742
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