That Summer

Upon publication, That Summer was marketed as the ultimate “beach read” of 2022. This epithet placed the novel within a specific category of stories that first emerged in the 19th century alongside the popularization of the beach holiday and which were intended to be read casually during the summer, either on the beach or in a similarly non-academic setting. The term “beach read” gained popularity during the 1990s, when Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist began to employ it as a marketing term to target a female audience with fast-paced and often uncomplicated narratives. Originally considered to be a subsection of women’s fiction, “beach reads” are typically stereotyped as being more lighthearted and less intellectual than other more widely accepted genres of “serious literature.” Thus, beach reads were originally understood to simply be novels written by women and for women; the unspoken assumption was that because the novels addressed women’s issues, they were therefore of lesser value than other more cerebral works of fiction. Such an arbitrarily dismissive assessment of women’s fiction as a whole is both inherently misogynistic and outdated in its heteronormativity, suggesting a false division in the stereotypes surrounding the content that men and women are assumed to prefer to write and read.

In many ways, That Summer conforms to elements of both women’s fiction and the “beach read” in particular. The novel is set partially in the sun-soaked towns of Cape Cod, and while it does have a romance subplot, it focuses primarily upon the relationships and experiences of three female characters: Beatrice, Daisy, and Diana. However, the novel also subverts some key elements of women’s fiction by blending the traditional tropes of the “beach read” with characteristics of the mystery genre such as alternating points of view; a non-linear narrative that circles around a single catastrophic event; characters with uncertain motivations; and a final shocking conclusion. Thus, by challenging the conventions of the generic “beach read,” Jennifer Weiner implicitly questions the unspoken value of judgments that deem women’s fiction to be lesser than others and suggests instead that such a genre in fact addresses far deeper topics and issues than it was originally assumed to do. Accordingly, her novel tackles the serious issues of violence against women, women’s rights, justice, and retribution. Her characters are likewise morally ambiguous; Diana struggles with her desire to punish the men who assaulted her, Daisy is implicated by her willing ignorance of Hal’s true nature, and Danny spends his life attempting to make up for the mistake he made as a teenager. Finally, although Beatrice is far more radical in her feminism than the older women are in theirs, the novel nonetheless questions her vigilante-style justice. Even the antagonist is not exempt from ambiguity, for although Hal himself is a violent and controlling man, he nevertheless appears to believe that he has done no wrong in his relationship with Daisy. Far from reinforcing a comfortable status quo of the world, Weiner’s novel is designed to force readers to question their commonly held beliefs and moral convictions.

In an April 2020 interview posted on GoodReads, Weiner herself has commented not only on the storytelling potential of the “beach read,” but also upon its necessity and importance, acknowledging her books’ “breezy tone” while insisting that they contain “serious stuff.” In the same interview, she also lampoons the typical “puritanical, capitalist, up-from-your-bootstraps society, where all pleasure is somehow suspect, where leisure time is meant to be devoted to self-improvement, and that books are meant to be salubrious and important and improving.” In the interview, Weiner not only advocates the value of reading purely for pleasure, but she also emphasizes that although her writing in That Summer, like many beach reads, is both “fast-moving and diverting and sexy and fun,” it also represents a serious discussion of the many social issues faced by women today (“Jennifer Weiner on Why ‘Beach Reads’ Matter Now More Than Ever.” GoodReads, 2020).