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| A Summons to Memphis | 
| Author: Peter Taylor
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $2.88
You Save: $11.07 (79%)
New (38) Collectible (1) from $5.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 271372
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Vintage International Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0375701176
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375701177
ASIN: 0375701176
Publication Date: June 29, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Older Ballentine printing.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Peter Taylor is well-known as a masterful writer of short stories set in the old South; not the well-explored South of explosive passions, but an urban world of faded gentility and empty custom. In his almost Jamesian evocations of the mannered upper classes in his native Tennessee, he neither romanticizes nor reviles, but meticulously observes, revealing the patterns of social behavior that leave the individual at the mercy of a relentless past. In this, only the second novel of his long career and the winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Taylor weaves a rich social web in telling the story of one family's stark social decline, symbolized by a move from Nashville to Memphis, and of the consequences through the years and down the generations.
Product Description
One of the most celebrated novels of its time, the Pulitzer Prize winner A Summons to Memphis introduces the Carver family, natives of Nashville, residents, with the exception of Phillip, of Memphis, Tennessee.
During the twilight of a Sunday afternoon in March, New York book editor Phillip Carver receives an urgent phone call from each of his older, unmarried sisters. They plead with Phillip to help avert their widower father's impending remarriage to a younger woman. Hesitant to get embroiled in a family drama, he reluctantly agrees to go back south, only to discover the true motivation behing his sisters' concern. While there, Phillip is forced to confront his domineering siblings, a controlling patriarch, and flood of memories from this troubled past.
Peter Taylor is one of the masters of Southern literature, whose work stands in the company of Eudora Walty, James Agee, and Walker Percy. In A Summons to Memphis, he composed a richly evocative story of revenge, resolution, and redemption, and gave us a classic work of American literature.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Dreadfully boring September 16, 2008
There are few books I wish I never read and this is one of them. There was nothing redeeming about it. Spare yourself the waste of time and do not read it.
 Excellent September 15, 2008
This is a story about family and the transitions that we all make as our parents age. A beautiful story, with a surprising little twist.
Uninvolving and long-winded September 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A difficult Southern father moves his family from Nashville to Memphis after losing his fortune, and his children spend the rest of their lives dealing with the emotional turmoil of life under his thumb. Many years later, his two unmarried daughters get their opportunity for revenge.
I really did not like this slim novel and am shocked that it won the Pulitzer Prize. I have no problem believing that wealthy Southerners in the years following the Great Depression would be consumed with issues of class and status, but I felt that Peter Taylor was just expecting me to accept this while neglecting the hard work of making it real to me through closely observed character details. Perhaps the novel's undoing begins with Taylor's choice of structure. The narrative is told by Philip Carver, a first person narrator who relates his family history through long rambling paragraphs nearly devoid of scenes or conversation that would bring us closer to these individuals. Instead, we get plenty of the narrator's judgments and interpretations delivered in a nostalgic, wistful tone that leaves us precious little opportunity to arrive at our own conclusions. Much is made of `Southern ladies of a certain age' and the conflicting cultures of Memphis and Nashville, but I felt as though I were held at arms length from it the whole time. Perhaps one must be a Southerner to fully appreciate Taylor's novel, but so many of the concerns of his characters are so petty and their behaviors so childish that it doesn't seem worth the trouble.
nuanced but powerful novel about a family December 23, 2007
this is a really beautifully written and complex novel. however,
don't expect it to be a page-turner at all times. i was riveted
at times but there were times i just had to go with the flow which
was slow but necessary to capture the unfolding of the story.
basically the story is about a family with a very dominating
father. the father is either totally oblivious to his actions
on the other family members or is just plain selfish.
the father intentionally ruins the marriage prospects
for 3 of 4 of his children, the other child dies in ww2.
the story follows the deep resentments the children have
for their father. when the father suddenly announces that
HE is going to get married again, the children (understandably)
react in extreme ways.
this novel is so powerful because it rings so true about the
power of unresolved resentments. when a parent seemingly
intentionally hurts their child, how is it possible
to forgive? it is the ultimate betrayal. how many of us
are truely able to forgive those family members who intentionally
hurt us? how many of us get trapped in resentment and
(many times unconsciously) tragically let it propel our lives?
this is an exceptional novel which subtly but powerfully captures
the power of unresolved past hurts which unfortunately, too
often, dictate our lives. i highly recommend it.
Didn't really get it June 12, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Peter Taylor has a very nice writing style and I didn't necessarily find the book boring but I did question what it was about? I didn't really get why Phillip resented the father for moving them from Nashville to Memphis when he was an adolescent. Families move all the time and adjust. If there was something deeper there, I didn't catch it.
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