Author(s): Charles Hall

Australian author

"Helen died on the day Sgt. Pepper's went on sale..." This devastatingly honest novel follows the story's protagonist, Nick, as he revisits a steamy and complicated summer of love years after its tragic end. The story of Summer's Gone begins when Nick is given a banjo that leads him to form a folk band in Perth with his best friend, Mitch, and two sisters from Melbourne, Helen and Alison. The novel details Nick's relationships with both sisters, and explores the reality of coming of age in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s; the music business, sexual freedom, women's rights, and the fight against conscription are among the ingredients of a story that moves between Perth and Melbourne, between hitching lifts across the Nullarbor and flying across in the newly arrived Jet Age. Summer's Gone has a distinctive Australian atmosphere. Authentic colloquial dialogue gives depth to this exploration of rebellious love and the major political issue of the time - the Vietnam War.