I was hitchhiking in France in the summer of 1976, when this book is set, so I have a very clear and visceral memory of that summer's oppressive heatwave and since I coincidentally started listening to this book during one of this summer's hottest weeks, I was able to share some of the characters' experiences of misery and discomfort.

With that background, I slippped quickly into the lives of the Irish Reardon family as they gathered together in London after the mysterious disappearance of Robert, their generally quiet and bland father. As so often happens, the adult children quickly revert to their childish selves, exacerbated by their mother Gretta's treatment of them as if they were still children rather than adults with families and lives of their own. They bring with them not only their childhood baggage, but hurt feelings from more recent slights and misunderstandings. Lying quietly underneath everything else, are the secrets that they all keep from each other and sometimes, from themselves.

This is a thoughtful book without much high drama about a family who has often been quick to judge each other and slow to forgive. Yet their concern and love for their father brings them together, closer than is comfortable for these private people, and in the process they come to rediscover their love for each other.

--Reviewed by Ellen J.

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sinstructions%20for%20a%20heat%20wave%20o%27Farrell__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=pearl