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 with bleeding wrists that mutters of revenge.
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 for him.
To very freely paraphrase Rothfuss, loving a book because is easy. Loving it despite…that’s where the magic resides. Contrary to what the original quote is about, it’s not despite any flaw that I loved Summer Sons (seriously, how the fuck is that a debut?), but despite my own tastes. Heavily atmospheric books are not usually my thing, and this book has the kind of atmosphere that sticks to your psyche long after finishing it.
Lee Mandelo is one hell of a writer. The way they immerses us in Andrew’s head is astonishing. There’s a weight to the grief described, to an almost-claustrophobic level. Everything we see through Andrew’s eyes is deformed by this fog of pain and denial, and a hint of paranoia. He’s not sure whom he should trust. It’s not comfortable by any stretch of the term, but this book is not supposed to be comfortable. It’s a maelstrom of raw feelings. It’s also a sensorial experience; you can almost smell the gasoline and coffee and rot, you can almost hear the cicadas and the sound of tires on asphalt, you can almost touch the sexual confusion.
Andrew is the personification of “that’s a lot to unpack”. He’s an open wound, barely stitched together by the all-powerful drive to come to terms with a tragedy. He is literally haunted, which is the creepy cherry on top of his trauma sundae. He lost his best friend, Eddie, to what seems to be a suicide, and he needs to understand what exactly happened. He retraces the steps of the man with whom he had an incredibly toxic and codependant relationship and finds more than he bargained for. Friendship for one thing, with a roommate he inherited, Riley. Riley is both very sensitive to the kind of supernatural craziness that seems to stick to Andrew, and has both feet very firmly on the ground. He was my favourite character, and an oasis of sanity in the shaky universe Andrew seems to inhabit:
For fuck’s sake, Andrew, is there anything in this scenario that feels heterosexual or well-adjusted to you?
The queer male gaze of this book is almost palpable. Andrew is in denial about his sexuality (a drinking game suggestion: take a shot whenever you feel the need to yell “YOU’RE NOT STRAIGHT, ANDREW”). It adds to the level of complexity his grief has; he’s not sure what words were left unsaid when Eddie died, what feelings were left unacknowledged.
While the bleak aspects of the book can be very bleak indeed, it has its moments of levity and deep human connection. It is, after all, a story about healing and self-discovery (a spooky one, with fast cars, admittedly).
Lee makes us navigate between very different worlds; the loose, sometimes violent street racing community, and the stilted, stifling world of Southern academia. In both, we find the miasma of white supremacy, floating around, taking different shapes.
Summer Sons was actually my first foray into Southern Gothic as a genre (my knowledge of it was basically “antlers”, “creepy things happening to people who drink sweet tea”, and “Alix Harrow is really into it”). It’s amazing how well the different themes and moods are blended. It’s a ghost story but also a coming-of-age and healing story, but also Dark Academia, but also a high-adrenaline urban fantasy, but also a slow-burn mystery, and there’s a hint of romance too. It managed to be everything and more without ever losing its way. An incredible, memorable, haunting debut.
Summer Sons is to be released by Tordotcom on the 28th of September. My thanks for the review copy!
