The Book

I just recently got a first edition of the novel "A Summer Place" by Sloan Wilson through the Cleveland Public Library (in excellent condition too!), and I can safely say as I am halfway through that I love the book and film equally! It was published in 1958, and the film was released in 1959, which shows what a big bestseller Wilson's novel was. Inevitably, the book is more detailed, with more characters and subplots that couldn't fit into a movie, but I think the filmmakers captured it very well.

***spoilers for those who haven't read the book or seen the movie***

In the beginning of the book, there is much more insight into the lives of Ken, Sylvia, Bart, and Helen. We see that Ken and Sylvia never really fit in with Pine Island society, and they are intensely attracted to each other but tried to fight it. Sylvia knows Bart is the man she must marry to gain acceptance, but she and Ken do make love before he leaves Pine Island. Flash ahead to 1953: The two, of course, have never forgotten that summer years ago, but do their best to conceal that from their spouses and children. Sylvia and Bart have a young daughter named Carla in the book, who doesn't figure much. Sylvia gets custody of her after the divorce. Bart does get custody of Johnny, but he eventually does go to spend time with his mother and her new husband, although, as in the movie, he detests them for the affair.

Johnny and Molly are younger in the book - Molly is 13 when they first meet and Johnny is 16, but they do have an innocent romance that first summer in 1953 before the Jorgensons return to Buffalo. Molly is also described as having dark hair, blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. Helen's mother Margaret, is far more developed in the book and the lines in the film regarding Helen's biases and prejudice are actually that of her mother and father. But Helen follows her parents' viewpoint, and like in the movie, she is quite frigid. Bart and Johnny learn of the affair first, and like in the movie, Bart attempts to emotionally blackmail Sylvia to keep Johnny out of her life, and Johnny is angry and hurt by his parents' divorce. Helen and Molly don't learn of the affair until the Jorgensons go to Florida and Sylvia and her children are there (providing time for her and Ken of course) and it is there that Johnny and Molly go on the sailing trip, capsize, and Molly is forced to undergo a physical examination. Helen is informed of the affair and as in the film, she and her mother work out a plan to keep Molly out of Ken's life. Molly does get to spend a few weeks a year with her dad. So the Johnny/Molly romance takes place and expands over a few years time. Their correspondence while they are away at school (Johnny sets a poem Molly wrote to music), and the consequences of their romance actually begins before they meet up again at Ken and Sylvia's new house for the summer is very well drawn out and conveyed.

The book is a great read.