The Summer Without Men

"An investigation into romantic comedy, both the classic Hollywood version—‘love as verbal war'—and Jane Austen's Persuasion . . . Among the novel's pleasures are its analysis of gender . . . and the character of Mia herself, who comes across as honest, witty and empathetic."—The New York Times Book Review

"This brisk, ebullient novel is a potpourri of poems, diary entries, emails and quicksilver self-analysis . . . The noisy chorus in Mia's head has an appealing way of getting inside the reader's too."—The Wall Street Journal


"Siri Hustvedt's engaging first novel . . . is a fragmented meditation on identity, abandonment, and loss. Multiple forms of prose pepper the narrative: poems, letters, e-mails, journal entries, and quotes from a raft of well-known scholars, scientists, and writers . . . Hustvedt manages to move seamlessly between Blake and Rilke to Kierkegaard and Hegel while maintaining a forward motion to this fluid narrative . . . Satisfying."—The Boston Globe

"Exuberant . . . A lighter, more lilting meditation on men and women, released in perfect time for summer reading . . . Hustvedt is a fearless writer . . . The reward for readers comes in the sheer intelligence of her prose . . . There is terrific writing here, mulling the gifts and limits of art, sex, marriage, but the touch is emphatically light . . . She's managed not to shrink the truth of women's lives, without relinquishing love for men."—San Francisco Chronicle



"Elegant . . . a smart and surprisingly amusing meditation on love, friendship, and sexual politics."—The Miami Herald


"Mia Frederickson, the poet narrator of The Summer Without Men . . . is blessed with empathy, irony and a healthy dose of feminist outrage at the way women's minds and bodies are routinely devalued . . . [Hustvedt's] finely wrought descriptions of everything from love to mean girls to marital sex make [The Summer Without Men] well worth reading."—Associated Press

"A mesmerizing and powerful meditation on marriage, the differences between the sexes, aging and what it means to be a woman . . . Truly breathtaking . . . Rich with both the pleasures and sorrows that make life complete, this is a powerful and provocative novel that will have astute readers reconsidering where exactly the boundaries between truth and fiction lie."—Bookpage



"Composed in tight vivid prose, The Summer Without Men is energetic, and handles its subjects with depth and wit, painting its characters and their complex emotions in the kind of detail that rings true to life."—Bibliokept.org

"[A] 21st century riff on the 19th-century Reader-I-married-him school of quiet insurgent women's fiction . . . Tart comments on male vs. female styles of writing-and reading-novels are a delight . . . A smart, sassy reflection on the varieties of female experience."—Kirkus Reviews

"Breathtaking . . . hilarious . . . What a joy it is to see Hustvedt have such mordant fun in this saucy and scathing novel about men and women, selfishness and generosity . . . Hustvedt has created a companionable and mischievous narrator to cherish, a healthy-minded woman of high intellect, blazing humor, and boundless compassion."—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)



"Intellectually spry . . . An adroit take on love, men and women, and girls and women."—Publishers Weekly