This story, A Summer to Remember, shows readers a Kansas farm family ruled by an unhinged matriarch who inflicts generational abuse on her own children, seemingly unable to change from what happened in her own life growing up. The story takes place during the summer when a farm boy is 13. The complexities of sibling and parent relationships in a farm family are well played out in this novella. Farm life is work, but in this family, Dale, the main character, is forced to do housework far beyond his actual age. He is to be silent, invisible, and simply work.
When Dale’s sister, Leetha, dies instantly from a lightning strike, their mother is devastated. The subsequent abuse she slings at Dale is so unrelenting, he contemplates suicide. In A Summer to Remember, Dale gets a small reprieve and grabs what minute bits of happiness he can occasionally steal for himself. Thankfully, Dale’s father shows kindness to the boy when he can. Midsummer, he puts the boy on a tractor to farm with him. Finally, at the end of that summer, at a county fair booth, Dale finds a type of spirituality that intrigues and eventually comforts him. This allows him to eventually heal from generational abuse. Farming the land and raising a family was different in the 1900s than it is today. While child abuse has existed for centuries, it wasn’t until the end of the 1900s that attention was given to finally exposing the significant wounds of child abuse and to promote healing.
A Summer to Remember is a poignant portrayal of the complexities of family surrounded by a cloud of generational abuse.
Dr. Cynthia Akagi, Retired Health Professor
Author of Dear Larissa and Dear Michael
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