Summer Burns

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Summer Burns vividly depicts a summer of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll
as experienced by teenage girls in small-town Ontario in the early
1970s.

For Joan and Sandy, life is a constant round of nights spent with biker
types looking for the best party and getting high on whatever drug is
available. Though appearing tough and cynical on the outside, Joan and
Sandy still have an innocence to be lost, and their coming of age is not
one of joy. The determination of both girls to rid themselves of their
virginity has disastrous consequences—an unwanted pregnancy and
subsequent abortion for one and rape for the other. Others in their gang
suffer violent attacks and death.

Parents play a very minor role in the girls’ lives (when they do
appear, they are totally out of touch with teenage reality). Though some
of the young males Joan and Sandy hang out come close to caricature,
with their violent, druggy behavior and appropriately weird nicknames,
they are fully realized characters. Another achievement of this
impressive novel is its finely drawn portrait of small-town life.