It's 1963, and fifteen-year-old Michael is spending the summer in the usual place: his family's New England beach house. This isn't a summer like the others, though. This is the summer he falls in love with the girl next door, twenty-year-old Zina. This is the summer he begins to understand the difference between what adults say and what they really mean. This is the summer he finds himself betrayed and learns in his turn to betray. This is the summer his life falls apart.
This devastating coming-of-age story, inspired by Ivan Turgenev's classic novel First Love, is a witty, elegiac masterpiece, which captures all the booze-soaked, salt-brined atmosphere of America's last summer of innocence.
'A small masterpiece. Simmons has found the perfect, delicate, elegiac voice' - New York Times Book Review
'A perfectly-cut gem' - Kirkus Reviews
'A simple and spellbinding novel...grimly enchanting...A powerful, 20th-century tragedy of an American family' - Wall Street Journal
'A riveting story of youthful innocence consumed by betrayal. Remarkably enthralling and agonizingly revealing....Simmons...maneuvers unfalteringly between each of his characters....The books opening line leads like a wick into a powder keg of unexpected consequences. Simply spellbinding' - Booklist
Charles Simmons (1924-2017) was for decades the editor of The New York Times Book Review. Born in Manhattan, he was educated at Columbia University and served in the Army in the Second World War. As well as Salt Water, he published several comic novels.
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