Usually, the upper-middle-class Foley-Levins gather at their grandmother Exalta Nicols’ historic home in downtown Nantucket for the summer, but this year they’re spread out across the world and only thirteen-year-old Jessie accompanies her worried mother Kate to her antisemitic and snobby grandmother’s home while her father stays at home in Brookline to work during the week. Each of them has their own troubled reasons for avoiding the habitually cozy family nest in that banner year – and each of them will go through intense change over the summer in their own way. Through the eyes of the four Foley-Levin siblings, Elin Hilderbrand fumblingly explores this era of change and tumult in her novel, Summer of ’69. Soon the Manson murders and Altamont will collide and kill off an entire generation’s dream of a peaceful, equable utopia. Within the space of four months, a man would walk on the moon, Woodstock would take place, Ted Kennedy’s car would plunge into the waters of Chappaquiddick, and the Vietnam War would reach its fraught peak. This summer marks the fiftieth anniversary of that momentous other summer – the one that took place in 1969.
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