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JILL BARNETT
The Days of Summer
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This paperback edition 2007
First published in the U.S.A by
Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2006
Copyright © Jill Barnett 2006
Jill Barnett asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781847560025
Ebook edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007278916 Version: 2018-05-21
This writing life I’ve stumbled through has brought me an abundance of riches, the most valuable a friendship of twenty years.
To Kristin and Benjamin Hannah, who have stood by my side and protected my back through all the wins and losses. Only the angels could have sent you.
Life can only be understood
backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard
Contents
Title Page Copyright Dedication Part One: 1957 Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Part Two: 1970 Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty Two Part Three: 2002 Chapter Twenty Three Chapter Twenty Four Chapter Twenty Five Chapter Twenty Six Chapter Twenty Seven Chapter Twenty Eight Chapter Twenty Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty One Chapter Thirty Two Chapter Thirty Three Chapter Thirty Four Chapter Thirty Five Chapter Thirty Six Epilogue Acknowledgments The Days Of Summer Questions And Topics For Discussion A Conversation With The Author About the Author About the Publisher
1957
A hurtful act is the transference to others of
the degradation which we bear in ourselves.
Simone Weil
Southern California
Warm and motionless nights were natural in LA, a place where so much of life was staged and the weather seldom competed for attention. There, events and people stood in the limelight. On most nights, somewhere in the city, searchlights panned the sky; tonight, in front of the La Cienega Art Gallery. All the art show regulars were there in force, names from the society pages, old money and new, along with enough existentialist poets and bohemians to fill every coffeehouse from Hollywood to Hermosa Beach.
Well-known