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LONG AFTER SUMMER by Robert Nathan

LONG AFTER SUMMER

By

Publisher: Knopf

The gentleness, wistful rather than whimsical, associated with Robert Nathan in a tragi-romantic idyll of Cape Cod, of a man, an orphaned child, and a boy. Johanna, who is taken for a summer from an asylum to the home of her father who never admits his paternity, is sent out to work in the home of the narrator- who remains nameless. Through him, she forms the first friendship of her lifetime, experiences her first love with Jot- a youngster who is to drown in a boating accident. In the disbelief and bewilderment which follows, Johanna maintains the illusion that Jot is alive ""long after summer"", and with the final acceptance of his death, the fear of her return to the asylum, attempts suicide. Finally she is reconciled to the years ahead knowing that the man who had befriended her will wait for her to grow up... A brief moment, briefly beguiling too.