[In the following review, Stewart notes a pleasant sense of nostalgia in Santmyer's posthumous novel Farewell, Summer.]

After a long, difficult day of meeting the demands of family, work, and community, how nice it is to settle down to a book that doesn't force my emotions to stretch from one end to another.

Farewell, Summer is a novella that relieves its reader of emotional upheavals by discussing current or historical turmoils. Rather, it amuses with fond childhood memories.

The author so expertly describes the scenery of country life that in some instances it appears the characters are dropped in merely to bring human vibrancy to a relaxed, beautiful, rural setting.

Imagine this: “The water made a rainbow in the sun over the row of cabbages, and you could smell the fresh dampness as far as the summer kitchen.” Or, “In Grandmother's yard were petunias and verbenas and marigolds—all the strong-colored flowers of midsummer.”

And: “We were in the heat of summer then. Days were long heavy, somnolent; locusts sang in all the trees, a stupefying chorus. It was too hot to do anything but read, or swing lazily in the hammock without reading. I looked for locust shells on the tree trunks and collected them. The heat made one childish; I lay on the grass …”

Farewell, Summer takes me back to my own childhood summers, in hilly country with weeping willows to swing on. On these long, languid summers where I was surrounded with relatives, we cousins conjured up foolishness and listened in on grown folks' conversations.

These thoughts kept popping into my mind while reading Helen Hooven Santmyer's book, as they are the very things Santmyer's Elizabeth Lane does—engage in child-like fun while surrounded by very adult goings on.

After years away as a writer and scholar, Elizabeth returns to the small Ohio town of Sunbury with the intentions of working on one book, but being there revives memories buried the years she was away. They must be written about now.

Although heat and passion are hardly the gist of Farewell Summer, the story takes some twists and turns that one might be more apt to find in a novel about an adult love triangle.

The year is 1905, and Elizabeth at 11 is in love with a Texas cousin who'd come to Ohio for the summer. Hers is not a love of wanton passion; rather she is very fond of Steve, and cares a great deal for him.

Steve, although a sensitive boy with great depth, is described as the “Wild West cousin.” His affection, however, focuses on another cousin, Damaris. And he has things in mind other than being simply “kissing cousins.”

Damaris denies her emotions and turns Steve away. She determined as a child to not marry, a decision reinforced by her desire to become a nun. Heartbroken and lovesick, Steve leaves Ohio and heads for Texas—only to find tragedy waiting for him.

It turns out that one of the relatives brought Steve to Ohio in hopes that he and Damaris would fall in love and marry. It is not clear how far or how close Steve and Damaris are as cousins because there are so many relatives to try to keep up with. The obvious intention of an incestuous relationship that could have developed is not acceptable, even though it is presented tastefully, innocently.

Farewell, Summer is full of kinship expressions that modern America may no longer be familiar with—almost everyone is addressed as “cousin,” and that makes one want to go home, be enveloped in family, and rethink wonderful memories of growing up.

This last novel by the late Helen Hooven Santmyer—also the author of “… And Ladies of the Club,” Ohio Town, Herbs and Apples, and The Fierce Dispute—should surely be put on your list of those to read, particularly if you need a hiatus from urban life.