Rating: 
Summary: Family: Forgive or Forget
Review: 1986 must have been a singularly awful year for literature, because the book that won the Pulitzer that year would have struggled during the years when Taylor (most of whose work was released during the forties) was in his salad days. This is not to say A Summons to Memphis, Taylor's first novel in forty years, is a bad book. It's a decent book, a nice book. And that's exactly why it doesn't deserve one of the highest honors that can be conferred on a novel. It's nice. What's so great about nice? When one thinks of Southern writers and Southern writing, names come to mind-- Faulkner, McCullers, Dickey (from Taylor's generation), Lee Smith, Barry Hannah (from the generation after). And, whther it's valid and warranted or not, Southern writing has become a genre in itself, where the gentility of Southern life is a veneer for the corruption beneath. A few novels have broken out of this mold successfully, but not many, and they've usually done it by having the corruption somehwere else. A Summons to Memphis, on the other hand, just kind of sits there being nice. Phillip Carver (one breathes a sigh of relief that no one in the family is named Raymond) is the sixtyish son of a man who plans to remarry. Remarrying, in old Southern families, is frowned upon, especially when one is in one's eighties. We careen from present (where the rest of the family attempts to stop dad from remarrying and Phillip is attempting to hold his own relationship together) to past (where Phillip gradually reveals things about the family's past life) and back again, learning the story of the family's disgrace in Nashville and their subsequent move to Memphis. During those times, the book takes on a kind of comedy-of-manners quality, and would probably have worked had it remained so; it might also have worked in the various places where one member of the family spoils the romantic efforts of another member of the family (this happens a number of times throughout the book) as a kind of Shakespearean tragedy; attempting to combine the two makes them cancel one another out, and the reader is left with a kind of detached amusement. It's well-written, and Taylor's writing style is as good as it was when he was the South's most celebrated short story writer. Problem is, it's a good style for short stories, and it doesn't hold up over two hundred twenty-five pages. Smack the Pulitzer committe in the head and go on to the next book.
Rating: 
Summary: Much Ado About Characters with Little Impact
Review: Although Peter Taylor was a fine writer, I doubt that A Summons to Memphis merited the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. It seems almost that this novel should have emerged from an earlier decade, perhaps the 40s after World War II, given its restrained and old-fashioned tone. The dynamics of the Carver family keep the story interesting, but ultimately there is not one defining event which is dramatic enough to place what happens to this family within a larger, universal context. The personal misfortunes of each family member collectively do not constitute or even come close to tragedy. A move to another city and the loss of the person one hopes to marry may be unsettling, but they are not earth-shattering events. The reader does not see any significant emotional impact that these events have had on any of the characters. Moreover, there is not one character who is so likable or lovable that the reader is moved by his or her fate. Even at the ending of the story, I did not feel empathy for Phillip Carver, despite his conflicting emotions about his father or his proclaimed independence of spirit. The central weakness of this novel is in the lack of character development and the failure of the author to reveal anything of the characters' inner lives. The two sisters, Josephine and Betsy, for example, might as well be called "Tweedle-Dum" and "Tweedle-Dee." They are practically indistinguishable from one another, and their viewpoints and responses to events are identical. They are not fully rounded characters and reside in the realm of caricature and burlesque. In a similar vein, the mother of the family was part of a vibrant social scene in Nashville. She is depicted as having strong, fortifying qualities (she places their move to Memphis is an historical perspective and braces the children for its attendant changes on their lives) inexplicably lapses into invalidism and helplessness after the move. No reason is given, other than that this occurs shortly after the onset of a severe headache one day. Even Alex Mercer, a lifelong friend and ally of the narrator, stops communicating after the death of the father, George Carver, and the reader is left wondering why. Although it succeeds as a well-told narrative about a southern family with a domineering father, A Summons to Memphis does not succeed in bringing us unforgettable characters whose lives resonate long after we finish the book.
Rating:
Summary: Much Ado About Characters with Little Impact
Review: Although Peter Taylor was a fine writer, I doubt that A Summons to Memphis merited the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. It seems almost that this novel should have emerged from an earlier decade, perhaps the 40s after World War II, given its restrained and old-fashioned tone. The dynamics of the Carver family keep the story interesting, but ultimately there is not one defining event which is dramatic enough to place what happens to this family within a larger, universal context. The personal misfortunes of each family member collectively do not constitute or even come close to tragedy. A move to another city and the loss of the person one hopes to marry may be unsettling, but they are not earth-shattering events. The reader does not see any significant emotional impact that these events have had on any of the characters. Moreover, there is not one character who is so likable or lovable that the reader is moved by his or her fate. Even at the ending of the story, I did not feel empathy for Phillip Carver, despite his conflicting emotions about his father or his proclaimed independence of spirit. The central weakness of this novel is in the lack of character development and the failure of the author to reveal anything of the characters' inner lives. The two sisters, Josephine and Betsy, for example, might as well be called "Tweedle-Dum" and "Tweedle-Dee." They are practically indistinguishable from one another, and their viewpoints and responses to events are identical. They are not fully rounded characters and reside in the realm of caricature and burlesque. In a similar vein, the mother of the family was part of a vibrant social scene in Nashville. She is depicted as having strong, fortifying qualities (she places their move to Memphis is an historical perspective and braces the children for its attendant changes on their lives) inexplicably lapses into invalidism and helplessness after the move. No reason is given, other than that this occurs shortly after the onset of a severe headache one day. Even Alex Mercer, a lifelong friend and ally of the narrator, stops communicating after the death of the father, George Carver, and the reader is left wondering why. Although it succeeds as a well-told narrative about a southern family with a domineering father, A Summons to Memphis does not succeed in bringing us unforgettable characters whose lives resonate long after we finish the book.
Rating:
Summary: Betrayal and Pay Back
Review: I know, I know, Pulitzer Prize novel, but I just couldn't warm to it. First of all, I found no character I could like. The protagonist is a middle aged gentleman now living a dull, colorless life in New York City with a woman as drab as he is. He is still angry at his father for moving the family from Nashville to Memphis when he was 13 years old. The father had been betrayed by his partner and best friend, and was so humiliated and enraged that he uprooted his family and commanded them never to utter the name of his betrayer again. The move affected every member of the family adversely. The mother seemed to adapt at first, but soon took to her bed and stayed there for thirty years. The 18 and 19 year old daughters had their beaus run off by their father. One because he came from Nashville, and the other because he was distantly related to the father's betrayer. The second son joined the armed service as soon as he became old enough and died in the Second World War. Forty years later, when their father is planning to remarry after his wife's death, the adult daughters plot to stop the wedding, and enlist their brother to return to Memphis to assist in their scheme. Evidently it was a common practice in Memphis to prevent elderly widowers from remarrying in order to save the estate from falling into the new spouse's clutches. In this case it is motivated more by revenge than financial concerns. This is the story of a controlling parent and children too cowed to take control of their own lives. The father in this novel was so self absorbed that he did not see his family as individuals, but only as extensions of himself. Therefore he had no realization of the pain he was inflicting. Their lives were irrevocably damaged by their father's action, but they could have saved themselves and chose not to do so. Their subsequent revenge on their eighty year old father could not have been satisfactory, and did not liberate them in any way. A cold, sad book, impeccably written, but not engaging. Not being a Southerner, I don't relate to a place and time where one's pedigree is more important than one's character, and folks can pinpoint one's origin right down to an area of a few blocks by one's accent. Where a certain style of dress is deemed to be "Nashville" and another "Memphis". Since this is definitely a regional story, perhaps I lack the necessary understanding to review this book properly.
Rating: 
Summary: The March of Time
Review: Like many southern writers of his generation Peter Taylor is very much interested in the march of time and its effects on society. Although Taylor's works focus on the "society" of Nashville and Memphis for the most part and not the agrarians of the rural south, his themes are much the same. The breaking down of old loyalties, manners, faiths, and relationships by the pluralisms of modern life.
A Summons To Memphis has already been described by other reviewers and I'll leave that as it is. Taylor's fiction is a much wider target than the simple story of Phillip Carver and his transplanted family in Memphis. By all means read this book and spend some time with Taylor's masterful short stories as well.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulously written
Review: Peter Taylor writes in a way that makes every moment enjoyable and worth remembering. The story of the lives of the members of the Carver family and the profound effect a move from Nashville to Memphis has on them is unforgettable. By the novel's end the reader is left with so much to consider, from the relationships of the characters to their motivations and eventual lifestyles. And unlike one of the last books I read, Philip Roth's American Pastoral, which also chronicled the life of an American family, Taylor's book is beautifully written but yet simple and clear - no egotistical self-loving prose here! I would actually plan on reading some of Taylor's other works, this was so enjoyable. You won't forget this one.
Rating:
Summary: Very restrained, yet emotionally intense story of a family
Review: Peter Taylor, a native Tennessean, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with this story in 1987. That, together with my residence in Nashville, was enough to recommend it to me.
The story is narrated by Phillip Carver, a fiftyish man who grew up in Nashville and Memphis in a prosperous and well-known family. The patriarchal head of the family, George Carver, had a thriving legal practice in Nashville before moving his entire family to Memphis after being involved in a business scandal with a prominent business partner. This story is about the ramifications that move had upon Carver's children, now middle aged and unmarried - Phillip and his two sisters, Betsy and Josephine. Their lives, all successful in their own ways, have been driven by an abiding resentment towards their father, and the father, in turn, directed their lives in ways that would appear devious and pernicious, including despoiling marriage plans for each one. Phillip had made flight to New York some fifteen years prior to the time period described here (which I calculated to be in the mid-1960's). The narrator, his father, now in his early eighties, and his two sisters, all carry immense emotional baggage towards one another. But it is of a type of baggage that is never given overt voice, lying buried beneath a veneer of politeness and rectitude. Indeed, the narrator conveys deep-seated emotional memories with a kind of dispassionate elan, if that is possible; he feels a step removed from the events of his life, and his feelings towards his sisters and father are unresolved, even under-developed. Indeed, he never quite resolves his feelings towards them, but dutifully returns to Memphis frequently over the course of the story at the behest of his sisters, who have engaged in a lifelong obsession over their father and his affairs. Phillip does receive some revelation on these matters towards the end and sees his family members as they perhaps really were and are.
In some ways, very little happens in this story. I had a sense of wanting the writer to break out and really tell a story. The narrator's emotional aloofness serves to prevent this. Eventually, the story does take off, but it takes some time. The writing is very subtle, and Taylor does have a knack for understatement. But perhaps he was more of a short story writer, as his resume suggests - I did enjoy this book, especially the insights into the lives of the cultural elite in regions that I am very familiar with, but am ambivalent about its being awarded the highest literary prize. Maybe on reflection I will change this view, but for now, I am a little untouched by this work.
Rating:
Summary: poignant story of dysfunctional southern blue bloods
Review: The Carver family is seriously dysfunctional. The father was betrayed in business and then proceeded to destroy each of his children's love lives. He then grows old, becomes a widower and wants to remarry. The book looks back on the life of his son and his relationships with family and father. No one in the book is particularly likable including the narrator. But it is interesting to hear the voice of this "well-bred" southerner and think his thoughts regarding his family. The story is well told through flash backs and ends well. I found the play between father and son particularly interesting and while I didn't see myself in Phillip or my father in his, I did relate to the father-son interplay through them and found myself cheering for their relationship.
Rating:
Summary: poignant story of dysfunctional southern blue bloods
Review: The Carver family is seriously dysfunctional. The father was betrayed in business and then proceeded to destroy each of his children's love lives. He then grows old, becomes a widower and wants to remarry. The book looks back on the life of his son and his relationships with family and father. No one in the book is particularly likable including the narrator. But it is interesting to hear the voice of this "well-bred" southerner and think his thoughts regarding his family. The story is well told through flash backs and ends well. I found the play between father and son particularly interesting and while I didn't see myself in Phillip or my father in his, I did relate to the father-son interplay through them and found myself cheering for their relationship.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best I've ever read
Review: The person who wrote the review "betrayal" is the one who got this book right. It's about a father who kept himself together by making sure his children didn't become anything that would make him uncomfortable or require that he look at himself. Peter Taylor's portrayal of this family dynamic is subtle and perfectly right on. This particular story happens to take place in the South using Southern details, but the barely detected yet almost complete control by a parent of his/her offspring can happen anywhere. It was interesting that the sisters knew enough about what had happened to protect their brother who seemed to have escaped. Mr. Taylor's prose is beautiful and impeccable in describing what had happened in this family.
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