Summer Has Ended - Wright, Ray

. .

Résumé :
Taking its title from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah (The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved, KJV), Ray Wright's novel renders a slice of hardscrabble life on a rented South Texas farm in the mid-1940s. Jeremy, adolescent son and only child of Lem and Olga Stroop, provides the filtering consciousness. Though less seasoned and crafty than Huck Finn, he is no less intelligent, curious, and resilient as he makes his way in a world that, for all its Bible Belt veneer, is earthy, raw, sexist, racist, cynical, profane, and often violent. For some three weeks in hot August, Jeremy is drawn repeatedly to a Pentecostal revival meeting in a local church and to its flamboyant preacher, Rev. Flancher. The boy's view of the world is narrow and innocent, and the answers he struggles toward are not easy or neat, but his determined search for a larger, more coherent world is richly human. The novel's prose is clear and direct, its details telling and precise, the dialogue lively and exact. And, in Wright's capable hands, the boy's quest for meaning and happiness becomes broad and timeless. -Harry Moore, author of Bearing the Farm Away and Beyond Paradise: The Unweeded Garden

Biographie:
Dr. Ray Wright was a native of Texas and spent his younger years in Salt Gap and Brady. His teaching career of 32 years was spent at the University of Houston Downtown teaching Literature and Philosophy. In 1985 he was privileged to spend a year in Guilin, China teaching American Literature. He is an honorary professor of literature at Guangxi Teachers University.In the 20 years thereafter , he took student groups from the university to China for study and adventure before his retirement. He devoted much of his academic career to the study of world religions. His publications include American Religion: Its Dynamics and Diversity, and A Handbook of Philosophy, both published by McGraw-Hill. He wrote this novel - part fiction, part life, - over a number of years reminiscing about his early life.Dr. Wright lost his battle with Alzheimer's in 2015.