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A review by gilmoreguide
The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson
3.0
Zinaida, Katya, and Ana have nothing in common, especially given that Zinaida lived in the small town of Sumy in the Ukraine in the 1800s and Katya and Ana are modern women. But in Alison Anderson’s debut novel, The Summer Guest, their lives intersect as Katya discovers Zinaida’s diary and hires Ana to translate it into English. For all three women this is their chance to emerge from from the blankness of their lives and step into history, if not on their own accomplishments, then on that of Zinaida’s friend, Anton Chekhov, who occupies a major portion of her diary in the final summers of her life.
An unusual woman for her times, Zina has a medical degree and had been working as a doctor in her community until shortly before her thirtieth birthday she began to suffer seizures and to lose her sight. She goes to live at her family’s dacha in Luka, where to help supplement their finances, her mother rents out the guesthouse to Chekhov’s family. Soon, her conversations with Chekhov are the cornerstone of her life and she records them in books her brother creates with paper specially lined so she can feel her way to try and write.
The rest of this review can be read at The Gilmore Guide to Books: http://wp.me/p2B7gG-1I4
An unusual woman for her times, Zina has a medical degree and had been working as a doctor in her community until shortly before her thirtieth birthday she began to suffer seizures and to lose her sight. She goes to live at her family’s dacha in Luka, where to help supplement their finances, her mother rents out the guesthouse to Chekhov’s family. Soon, her conversations with Chekhov are the cornerstone of her life and she records them in books her brother creates with paper specially lined so she can feel her way to try and write.
The rest of this review can be read at The Gilmore Guide to Books: http://wp.me/p2B7gG-1I4