Winner of the 1987
Pulitzer Prize, A
Summons to Memphisis
a novel about how supposedly loving family members can
obstruct one another. Narrator Phillip Carver's summons to Memphis
comes from his two older sisters when their 81-year-old recently
widowed father wants to remarry. The family crisis brings up Phillip's
memories about his youth in Memphis, including his own and his sisters'
thwarted marriage prospects.
More than three decades before, their father, George, betrayed and
financially ruined by a client friend, moved them from Nashville to
Memphis to start over. The children were then 13, 15, 19, and 20.
Betsy, the oldest, was all but engaged to a medical student from a
wealthy Nashville family. But George managed to send away Betsy's
suitor, as he did with Josephine's and Phillip's when their turns came.
None of George Carver's children married. George Jr. was killed in the
Battle of the Bulge. Betsy and Josephine are still in Memphis and have
successful careers in real estate, but Phillip suspects they're still
virgins. Phillip, whose stealthy move to New York two decades earlier
was pushed and financed by his sisters, is temporarily separated from a
live-in for whom he expresses no passion.
Betsy and Josephine have learned their father's lessons. His
interference ruined their chances at happy marriages, and now they
exact their revenge. They scheme rather than confront, presenting a
loving face while letting George endure ridicule on the Memphis social
scene, sabotaging his wedding, and finally moving in with the old man
to keep him under constant watch. Taylor draws a lot of interesting
contrasts between "new" Memphis and "old" Nashville, but the real
relevance of place might be that the story takes place in the South
when patriarchs felt entitled to control their offspring, and any
rebellion by the offspring was underhanded rather than direct.
Phillip's narration is languid and roundabout. Only gradually are the
extent of the father's tyranny and the motives of the daughters
revealed. Depending on how a reader views Phillip, very different
interpretations of the novel are possible. Phillip finally comes to
understand and forgive his father — but is he an unreliable
narrator, removed from feelings even while he analyzes repeatedly? This
book is too subtle to be a guaranteed upbeat read, but its insights
into family dynamics recommend it nonetheless.
Home
My
reviews
My
friends' reviews