I understand why Gehrman received a six-figure advance for this debut novel. A story at once hopeful and tragic, it chronicles the summer of awakening discoveries for Anna, the daughter of a guitarist/luthier/father who committed suicide and the harpist/techy/mother whose secret life destroyed the underlying stitches that hemmed the family together.

A poignant, rambling journey full of fun and quiet surprises, Summer in the Land of Skin will remind you of the importance of living today. ( )

Title: Summer in the Land of Skin
Author: Jody Gehrman
Genre: Fiction
# of pages: 320
Start date: 8/10
End date: 8/11
Borrowed/bought: borrowed
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B

Description of the book: Twenty-five-year-old Anna--blond, famished and emotionally numb--is following the long-cold trail of her father, a celebrated luthier, whose death has always haunted her. She has tracked his former business partner to a houseboat on Bellingham Bay, determined to prize from the old man the secrets of their guitar-making trade, and maybe a few answers about her father. Anna catches an echo of her musical father in Arlan, guitar player for a local band. Soon she's living on his sofa and hanging but with his girlfriend. And if Anna's new friends do drugs, read her journal and leave open a few too many bedroom doors, who's to say they aren't real friends? And if Anna has feelings for Arlan, who's to say where her loyalty lies? During a single summer's worth of days, gin-soaked and colored with longing, Anna rediscovers her senses, shut down since her father's death, and finds that the only way to get free of her past is to embrace it.

Review: I enjoyed the introspection that the character when through trying to understand depression and dying. I also understood the main character's struggle with trying to understand a person she never really knew, which I can relate to. I did feel like the drinking dragged on and on in the book however. It is published by Red Dress Ink, which is chick lit, but I wouldn't necessarily call it chick lit, but then again I don't read a lot of chick lit. ( )

I almost feel bad for Jody Gherman that this was published by Red Dress Ink, because if it was under a mainstream publisher's name I think it could have been an Oprah book or something. This definitely wasn't "chick lit" - not fluffy and funny, but a coming-of-age type story done really, really well. It was fabulous, made me think, and reminded me a little of Paint It Black by Janet Fitch. I don't know if that's due to the whole suicide angle, or if it's a similarity in the writing, but either way it was a great book, highly recommended, and "not chick lit". ( )

Good summer read. ( )