The Summer Guest

Summary (from the publisher): Blinded by a fatal illness, young Ukrainian doctor Zinaida Lintvaryova is living on her family’s rural estate in the summer of 1888. When a family from Moscow rents a cottage on the grounds, Zinaida develops a deep bond with one of their sons, a doctor and writer of modest but growing fame called Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Intelligent, curious, and increasingly introspective as her condition worsens, Zinaida keeps a diary chronicling this extraordinary friendship that comes to define the last years of her life.

In the winter of 2014, Katya Kendall’s London publishing house is floundering-as is her marriage. Katya is convinced that salvation lies in publishing Zinaida’s diary, and she approaches translator Ana Harding about the job. As Ana reads the diary, she is captivated by the voice of the dying young doctor. And hidden within Zinaida’s words, Ana discovers tantalizing clues suggesting that Chekhov—who was known to have composed only plays and short stories—actually wrote a novel during his summers with Zinaida that was subsequently lost. Ana is determined to find Chekhov’s “lost” manuscript, but in her search she discovers it is but one of several mysteries involving Zinaida’s diary.

Inspired by fragments of historical truth, The Summer Guest is a transportive, masterfully written novel about an unusual, fascinating friendship that transcends the limits of its time and place. It’s also a contemporary story about two compelling, women, both of whom find solace in Zinaida and Chekhov as they contemplate all that’s missing in their own lives.

 

Review: I received an advance reader's edition of this novel from HarperCollins.

 

Beginning in 1888, over the course of two summers, Ukrainian doctor Zinaida Lintvaryova befriends Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who lives on her family's rural estate both summers. Zinaida is suffering from a fatal illness, which has left her blind and increasingly debilitated, yet able to record her experiences in a diary. Chekhov is on the verge of a brilliant writing career: "These were his last weeks of relative anonymity, of normality, before the outside world began to claim him, in both senses of the term, good and bad" (38). He confides in Zinaida about his work on a novel and asks her to keep this novel a secret.

 

In alternating chapters, the novel shifts perspective to 2014, when Katya Kendall, whose marriage and London publishing house is on the rocks, asks translator Ana Harding to translate Zinaida's diary. Ana is quickly captivated by the voice of the dying young doctor and her famous friend and becomes inspired to find the lost Chekhov manuscript that Zinaida writes about in her diary. Yet her search reveals several mysteries surrounding the diary and this period of Chekhov's life.

 

The author did an excellent job of weaving true historical facts into an inventive and believable work of fiction. Chekhov did indeed spend two summers in the Ukraine and the Lintvaryova family were real people. Additionally, the frame story, where Ana is busy working to translate Zinaida's diary was a more inspired context than many works of historical fictions, which often try to weave more tenuous and thus less believable connections between historical and present day characters. Like Ana, I felt more and more drawn to both Zinaida as a character and the story of her friendship with Chekhov as the novel unfolded.

 

Furthermore, Anderson did an excellent job imagining the world from a perspective of a blind narrator. Zinaida's poignant reflection on life without sight were moving and felt true to life; "Sometimes I like to think I can smell the clouds, a faint crisp dampness, full of blue" (19). Ironically, it is Zinaida's blindness that allow her an intimate insight and closeness with Chekhov: "Without my gaze, he was free in a way that no sighted presence could ever allow. That is the harsh, uncomfortable truth about sight that I have discovered only since I've lost it: Others may use one's blindness to find a place to comfort" (167).

 

This novel is also an interesting meditation on the nature of writing itself. Katya struggles to stay afloat in the world of publishing, Ana works diligently to truthfully translate, Chekhov struggles to finish his novel, and Zinaida labors to continue to put words to the page in her new sightless reality. Chekhov feels overwhelmed by the scope of a novel; "It's the scale of it, you see, to fill a whole novel, you need the trajectory of a life. It's overwhelming at times" (212). Zinaida must re-learn to write, slowly and carefully to try to maintain legibility for the seeing world. Even while Chekhov's writing is gaining fame and renown, Zinaida and her writing is fading away, sometimes literally: "Yesterday Natasha walked by and said, What are you writing? The page is blank, poor sister! It is so hot that the ink dries in the inkwell" (236). Despite the struggles and the failures, it is in writing that these characters make connections to each other and maintain a legacy that lasts beyond their own lifetime.

 

The novel's ending took me by complete surprise and forced me to contemplate the connection to characters when viewed through the lens of fiction versus non-fiction. My one complaint with this novel is that Anderson took on too many storylines in the 2014 storyline. Both Katya and Ana's stories felt unfinished. In particular, Ana's brief run-in with her former husband felt arbitrary and without bearing on the rest of the novel. It merely took up space and introduced a complexity that wasn't needed.

 

Stars: 4