Heat Wave

Penelope Lively's novel "Heat Wave" offers a psychologically astute portrayal of a family grappling with the destructive cycle of infidelity, set against the backdrop of a long, hot English summer.

Pauline, a freelance copyeditor in her fifties, is spending the summer at her cottage, "World's End," in the English countryside. Her daughter, Teresa, has joined her in the adjoining cottage, along with Teresa's husband, Maurice, and their infant son, Luke.

Pauline is a single and independent woman in her fifties with her own routine - working on her manuscripts, joining in for occasional meals with Teresaa and Maurice, helping out with Luke, taking the occasional trip to her flat in London. She remains guarded about Maurice, a writer she has known longer than Teresa has (and whom Teresa met through Pauline). She can't say exactly why. But when Maurice's editor James and his girlfriend Carol start making weekend trips to World's End, and Pauline observes the dyanimc between Maurice and Carol, she knows the source of her discomfort. She starts to see a pattern familiar to her from her own past experiences, as she recalls the infidelity of Teresa's father, Harry, decades earlier.

The novel focuses on the mother-daughter relationship, exploring the unspoken understandings and shared anxieties between Pauline and Teresa. Pauline watches helplessly as Teresa, deeply in love with Maurice and an innocent who generally believes the best about people, seems destined to repeat her mother's mistakes. Lively weaves in Pauline's memories of her own passionate and ultimately fractured marriage, creating a powerful sense of history repeating itself.

"Heat Wave" is intense, and Lively's taut and insightful writing makes it a compelling exploration of love, marriage, adultery, and the enduring strength of a mother's protective instincts.