The Rites of Summer

Meet Dicky Williams, a small-town terror growing up on Canada's east coast circa 1980. Hip and perceptive beyond his years, thirteen-year-old Dicky regularly cons, deals, lies and steals - anything to bring him cheap thrills in an increasingly existential world. It's the lazy days of summer, and Dicky's parents are off to the country for a weekend of reconciliation, leaving Dicky and his pals, the Owens brothers, to take full advantage of the liquor cabinet and wreak havoc upon the neighbourhood. With an eye on lucrative blackmail, the boys photograph a paedophiliac priest in the midst of committing an act; create an uproar at their favourite restaurant; score drugs at an intersection; make fools of English tourists - all in an evening's work. Meanwhile in the country, Mr. and Mrs. Williams and their four-year-old daughter Gwendolyn seem to have entered the proverbial twilight zone. In a narrative bordering on slipstream, the couple has to deal with inexplicably stopped watches, a lurking stranger, and a mysterious metallic object discovered in the fancy log cabin in which they're lodging. Mrs. Williams also has to deal with her irascible husband's unfulfilled sexual desires as they rise to the surface in the midst of a heated exchange on a stormy Saturday night. Also experiencing some stranger moments is the couple's eldest child, Karyn, who has been dropped off to summer camp for a two-week stay. Why has someone filled her clothes trunk with gravel? Should she trust her sophisticated bunkmates to influence her style and lead her into romance? Who has been watching her from the neighbouring boys' camp? And what sort of boy sends messages via Morse code anyway? Tragedy lurks around every corner when you're coming of age like the Williams children, who are curious to a fault. Partially written in an experimental style (that often has two chapters unfolding simultaneously on the same page), The Rites of Summer takes you back to the days of smokey teen hangouts, wine-swilling pubescents, and young 'sexual Knievels'; when The Clash, ABBA and Pink Floyd shared the airwaves, summer camp was almost obligatory, and adolescents didn't need Oprah Winfrey, nanny-state legislation and school shootings to protect their interests or voice their frustrations. Exhibiting influences ranging from William S. Burroughs to Kathryn Harrison to Joan Lindsay, The Rites of Summer is poet R. W. Watkins's first foray into novel-writing.