In the Fine Summer Weather

New York: Random House. Very Good+. (c.1938). First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [nice solid book, minimal shelfwear, would rate Near Fine but for some uneven dust-soiling to the top of the text block; two rubber-stamps inside, of Bertrand Smith's Acres of Books, Long Beach, Calf. (on front pastedown) and Monroe Gift Shop (on front endpaper)]. Novel about a single day's happenings among three couples vacationing at the same New Hampshire lake: a talented but struggling writer and his hard-drinking wife; a wealthy philanderer of good old New England stock, and his childless wife; and a happy young couple and their 7-year-old son. Things get interesting (and not necessarily in a good way) when a bogus European baroness, a former lover of one of the men, shows up on the scene with her daughter. According to the New York Times critic, the author was particularly adept at portraying the children with a "fine sympathy and understanding" -- apart from which "the plot is thin, but sufficient for a Summer-weather novel." .