Review: The Myth of Perpetual Summer by Susan Crandall

The Myth of Perpetual Summer by Susan Crandall  (June 19, 2018 / Gallery) 

**Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I received no additional compensation**

Goodreads Summary: 
Tallulah James’s parents’ volatile relationship, erratic behavior, and hands-off approach to child rearing set tongues to wagging in their staid Mississippi town, complicating her already uncertain life. She takes the responsibility of shielding her family’s reputation and raising her younger twin siblings onto her youthful shoulders.

If not for the emotional constants of her older brother, Griff, and her old guard Southern grandmother, she would be lost. When betrayal and death arrive hand in hand, she takes to the road, headed to what turns out to be the not-so-promised land of Southern California. The dysfunction of her childhood still echoes throughout her scattered family, sending her brother on a disastrous path and drawing her home again. There she uncovers the secrets and lies that set her family on the road to destruction.

My Review:
I had my doubts about 20% in on this one and almost quit. The writing is thick with Southern expressions and they almost got to be too much. I also couldn't figure out where THE storyline was in the jumble of storylines. But, in the end, I'm glad I stuck with it! This family's dysfunction is not easy to figure out at first. As a reader I was trying to find "the problem" but there are several. Dad Drayton is a college professor with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and Mom Margo is consumed with the social upheavals of the time. She is constantly attending meetings and protests while being generally absent from parenting--leaving her four children in the care of her mother-in-law. Daughter Tallulah resents having to care for her younger twin siblings, Dharma and Walden, while her older brother Griff has more freedoms. The story opens with adult Tallulah learning that Walden has been arrested and her emotional return to Mississippi after years away. As she confronts her grandmother and demands answers for long buried secrets and decisions, the family's story is teased out. There is not a single incident that led to the scattering of this family, but a compilation of serious problems that sent everyone spinning into their own orbits. I would recommend this to anyone who liked The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and Fried Green Tomatoes, just as both of those are thought of as "Southern chick lit", anyone who has read them (or seen the movies) knows they deal with large and heavy issues in both terrible and touching ways. 


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