How to Survive a Summer (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780399573682)

**Named One of Book Riot's BEST QUEER BOOKS OF 2017**

"Packed with story and drama ... If Tennessee Williams's 'Suddenly Last Summer' could be transposed to the 21st-century South, where queer liberation co-exists alongside the stubborn remains of fire and brimstone, it might read something like this juicy, moving hot mess of a novel." -Tim Murphy, The Washington Post

A searing debut novel centering around a gay-to-straight conversion camp in Mississippi and a man's reckoning with the trauma he faced there as a teen.

Camp Levi, nestled in the Mississippi countryside, is designed to "cure" young teenage boys of their budding homosexuality. Will Dillard, a midwestern graduate student, spent a summer at the camp as a teenager, and has since tried to erase the experience from his mind. But when a fellow student alerts him that a slasher movie based on the camp is being released, he is forced to confront his troubled history and possible culpability in the death of a fellow camper.

As past and present are woven together, Will recounts his "rehabilitation," eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer, and to reclaim his story from those who have stolen it. With a masterful confluence of sensibility and place, How to Survive a Summer is a searing, unforgettable novel that introduces an exciting new literary voice.

"Clear and moving, revealing White's talent in evoking the complexities of the rural South."
--Publishers Weekly

Author: Nick White
ISBN-10: 0399573682
ISBN-13: 9780399573682
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Language: English
Published: 06/06/2017
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.10h x 5.90w x 1.30d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2017
Publishers Weekly 04/17/2017
Booklist 05/01/2017 pg. 57
Shelf Awareness 07/18/2017
School Library Journal 11/01/2017 pg. 96