A Summer Place
First edition
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| Author | Sloan Wilson |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
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Publication date
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1958 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 369 pp.(first edition) |
| Preceded by | The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit |
A Summer Place is a 1958 novel by Sloan Wilson, a follow-on to The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The novel is about an adult couple who rekindle a long-ago summer romance that ended because of class differences, and their two teenage children from other marriages who also fall in love with each other. It was adapted into a 1959 film of the same name.
Two onetime teenage lovers, Ken Jorgenson and Sylvia Hunter, marry other people, but rediscover each other later in life. By then, Sylvia has a son, Johnny, and Ken a daughter, Molly, who also begin a romance.
While in college, the self-supporting Ken takes a summer job as a lifeguard on Pine Island, an exclusive Maine island resort, where Sylvia and her nouveau riche family are staying as guests of the old money owners. The rich young people at the resort mock Ken and exclude him from their social activities, considering him a lowly employee. Although Sylvia is strongly attracted to Ken, she feels pressure from her family and from her wealthy peers to reject the impoverished Ken and make a more suitable match with Bart Hunter, the son of a wealthy, established island family. Bart and Ken eventually come to blows over Sylvia, leading to Ken and Sylvia secretly consummating their love. Ken leaves the island for good at the end of the summer, and Sylvia marries Bart as her family wishes.
Ken becomes a millionaire through his work as a research chemist, and marries his partner's daughter, Helen, who turns out to be prudish and frigid. Meanwhile, Sylvia's husband Bart turns to alcohol as his family fortune dwindles, and he turns their island home into an inn. After twenty years away, Ken decides to visit the island again, writing Bart to ask for lodging. At first Bart wants to refuse, since he feels Ken is visiting to gloat over the relative change in their financial circumstances, but Sylvia insists that they need the money too badly to turn Ken down.
Ken brings Molly and Helen to the island, and everyone tries to be cordial. The young Johnny and Molly soon become enamored of each other, while Ken and Sylvia fall in love all over again. When Bart finds out about Ken and Sylvia, he asks for a divorce and custody of their son John. Later, a friend of Helen's alerts her to Ken's affair with Sylvia, and Ken and Helen divorce. John and Molly are sent to separate boarding schools. Ken and Sylvia eventually marry.
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