A finalist for the New York Public Library’s
Young Lions Fiction Award

Named a Best Book of 2007 by
Providence Journal
Austin American-Statesman
Madison Capital Times

 

MORE PRAISE FOR EMILY MITCHELL AND
The Last Summer of the World

“Soldiers, of course, live and die in the trenches, in the air, behind the cameras, and Mitchell engages our sympathy for them and the ravaged land by emphasizing the fragility of both. … Her writing is spare yet never mannered; she holds back only to draw you in, whether she is describing a spectacular aerial dogfight or a marital spat.”

—Boston Globe

“An absorbing debut novel … told with the elegance of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, this book captures the life and heart of a great photographer and of a world beset by war.”

—Book Passage

“Finely wrought … rich in detail … Mitchell has a lyrical sensibility and a glorious ability to write about art.”

—Madison Capital Times

“Mitchell’s prose is engaging and spirited. … A striking novel highlighting the rich experience of artists in Europe in the early 1900s and the inner life of a conflicted individual.”

—Library Journal

“Mitchell vividly imagines the terror of these historic dogfights. … Enriching her intensely psychological tale with cameos of Auguste Rodin and others, Mitchell evokes the spell of creativity and the pain of rupture when following one’s vision severely complicates relationships.” —Booklist, starred review

“Mitchell has chosen an innovative and unusual narrative structure of chronological fragmentation. … Mitchell establishes a context for individual photographs and deftly handles moments of personal crisis in Steichen’s life and career. … A novel in which the chaos and fragmentation of war mirror the chaos and fragmentation of personal relationships.”

—Kirkus Reviews