The Summer Guest - Softcover

The book blurs the line between firsthand experience and imagining worlds one cannot know, either because of blindness or the removals of time and geography, and renders authentic and memorable portraits of its three heroines. (New York Times Book Review)

[Anderson’s] prose is the height of elegance. Here’s hoping that she follows this novel with more of her own. An exceptional novel about the transcendent possibilities of literature, friendship, and contemplation. (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

Elegant.... This alluring and deceptively ingenuous novel demands close consideration from its readers, contains an internal mystery, and packs a heartbreakingly lovely emotional punch. (Booklist (starred review))

The Summer Guest gives us all of the pleasures of a superb mystery novel, but most of all it is a profound meditation on the power, and necessity, of the imagination. What a deeply moving novel. (Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena)

A richly researched and subtly nuanced mystery that explores the intimate relationships of one of Russia’s best loved writers and poses intriguing questions about the fine line between art and deception. (Kathleen Tessaro, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfume Collector)

Beautifully crafted and richly evocative, The Summer Guest offers sharp insight into the humor and humanity of [Anton Chekhov], and vivid transport to the verdant countryside of 1880s Eastern Ukraine. (Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls)

“An effable Russian atmosphere. . . . Leaves ample room for the delights of the imagination, with that little extra touch of soul.” (Muriel Barbery, author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog)

“The portrayal of a great writer is a difficult feat for any novelist to pull off, but Alison Anderson succeeds. Her Chekhov is warm, engaging, possessed of a good sense of humour and a down-to-earth perspective.” (National Post)

“Subtle and haunting.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Luminous. . . . It is the bittersweet tone and elegantly entwined portraits of three remarkable women that make The Summer House so transporting.” (Seattle Times)

What if Anton Chekhov, undisputed master of the short story, secretly wrote a novel—a manuscript hidden long ago that might have survived?

This tantalizing possibility drives The Summer Guest, a spellbinding story that draws together, across two centuries, the lives of three women through a moving, mysterious diary.

During the long, hot summer of 1888, an extraordinary friendship blossoms between Anton Chekhov and a young doctor named Zinaida Lintvaryova. Recently blinded by illness, Zinaida has retreated to her family’s estate in the lush countryside of eastern Ukraine, where she is keeping a diary to record her memories of her earlier life. But when the Chekhov family arrives to spend the summer at a dacha on the estate, and she meets the middle son, Anton Pavlovich, her quiet existence is transformed by the connection they share. What begins as a journal kept simply to pass the time becomes an intimate, introspective narrative of Zinaida’s singular relationship with this writer of growing fame.

More than a century later, in 2014, the publication of Zinaida’s diary represents Katya Kendall’s last chance to save her struggling London publishing house. Zinaida’s description of a gifted young man still coming to terms with his talent offers profound insight into a literary legend, but it also raises a tantalizing question: Did Chekhov, known only as a short-story writer and dramatist, write a novel that has since disappeared? The answer could change history, and finding the manuscript proves an irresistible challenge for Ana Harding, the translator Katya hires. Increasingly drawn into Zinaida and Chekhov’s world, Ana is consumed by her desire to find the “lost” book. As she delves deeper into the moving account of two lives changed by a meeting on a warm May night, she discovers that the manuscript is not the only mystery contained within the diary’s pages.

Inspired by the real-life friendship between Chekhov and the Lintvaryov family, The Summer Guest is a masterful and utterly compelling novel that breathes life into a vanished world while exploring the transformative power of art and the complexities of love and friendship.