My enormous thanks to Karen Sullivan for sending me a surprise copy of One Grand Summer by Ewald Arenz, translated by Rachel Ward. Knowing how brilliant Orenda books are I was delighted to receive it and loved it so much I chose it as one of my July paperback column in The People’s Friend magazine. As a blog tour has subsequently been arranged, it’s my very great pleasure to share my full review as part of the blog tour today and I would like to thank Anne Cater for inviting me to participate. 

Previously I have featured Ewald’s Tasting Sunlight here too.

One Grand Summer is published by Orenda today, 18th July 2024 and is available for purchase here.

One Grand Summer

Sixteen-year-old Frieder’s plans for the summer are shattered when he fails two subjects. In order to move up to the next school year in the Autumn, he must resit his exams. So, instead of going on holiday with his family, he now faces the daunting and boring prospect of staying at his grandparents’ house, studying with his strict and formal step-grandfather.

On the bright side, he’ll spend time with his grandmother Nana, his sister Alma and his best friend Johann. And he meets Beate, the girl in the beautiful green swimsuit…

The next few weeks will bring friendship, fear and first love – one grand summer that will change and shape his entire life.

Heartbreaking, poignant and warmly funny, One Grand Summer is an unforgettable, tender novel that captures those exquisite and painful moments that make us who we are.

My Review of One Grand Summer

Frieder has to resit two exams.

Goodness me. One Grand Summer is glorious. Intense and achingly beautifully written and translated, this is a story of the fragility and resilience of youth, of first love and longing, and of hope and despair in a heady cocktail of exquisite storytelling and I absolutely adored it.

Whilst this is a book in translation, there isn’t a discordant note in it. In the same way Frieder’s grandmother creates images with just a few brush strokes, so Ewald Arenz creates setting character and theme with perfection. 

The attention to detail, the scent of the summer for example, is just wonderful. The reader can envisage the scene effortlessly and yet is completely affected by each word. I found One Grand Summer the kind of book that seeps into the soul. 

The unity of one summer, of the four friends Frider, Johann, Alma and Beate, and of Frieder’s grandparents’s home lends an intensity to the story that feels somehow densely solid and yet has an almost dreamlike ephemeral quality. The novel is so well constructed. The plot is prosaic at times – a group of teenagers misbehave on occasion – and at other times it it startlingly shocking so that rather like Frieder’s journey of self awareness, the reader never quite knows what might happen. 

Events aside, it is character that makes One Grand Summer so captivating. The swirling family relationships, Frieder’s coup de foudre falling in love with Beate, Johann’s mental health and the brilliantly contrasting touchstone of Frieder’s grandfather all combine into a rich and varied exploration of identity and growth. I found every single person in One Grand Summer completely fascinating, intriguing and interesting.  

The nuances of theme are gorgeously wrought too. Ewald Arenz explores growing up, burgeoning sexuality and friendship through Frieder, but he also considers, marriage, love, mental health and family, looking at reputation, responsibility and honour too so that there is a maturity and depth to even the most casual seeming aspects. I found myself deeply, emotionally affected by reading this book. 

One Grand Summer is coming of age writing of the most profound, most illuminating kind, written with a breath-taking luminosity and humanity. I couldn’t have loved it more.

About Ewald Arenz

Ewald Arenz was born in Nuremberg in 1965, studied English, American literature and history, and now works as a teacher at a grammar school. His novels and plays have received numerous awards. Tasting Sunlight was longlisted for the Waterstones Debut
Fiction Prize, shortlisted for the German Booksellers Best Novel Award, and featured on the Spiegel bestseller lists in both hardback and paperback for months. One Grand Summer won the German Booksellers Prize in 2021, and was a number-one bestseller in
Germany. Ewald lives with his family near Fürth.

For further information, follow Ewald on Twitter/X @EwaldArenz or visit his website. You’ll also find him on Instagram and there’s more with these other bloggers too: