Summer of Love
I appreciate that it is often the publisher rather than the author who chooses the title for a book and for commercial rather than artistic reasons, so perhaps Fraser is not to blame. The Summer of Love covers 15 summers and all the seasons in between, from 1949 to 1964. It is a saga following the lives and loves of a group of young, rich beautiful people in London and the Home Counties from their schooldays into their late twenties. They lead hectic lives, although only one seems to have a ‘real job’, party a lot and change partners frequently.
So far, so shallow. But the book touches on deeper themes: racial prejudice, homosexuality, drug addiction, illegitimacy and single parenthood. The 1950s were a time of rapidly changing social attitudes, at least among the young metropolitan elite. Fraser is particularly good at the period ambience, especially the clothes and the music. This is a nostalgia trip for all who remember the Fifties and Sixties, even if you did not belong to the metropolitan elite.
