As Summers Die by Winston Groom (1980)

As Summers Die
by Winston Groom
Publisher: Summit Books
Copyright: 1980
Book Club Edition

As Summers Die is a novel about power and money, about treachery and faith, adversity and courage. Its subject is oil -- big oil -- and its theme is the belief of a solitary man that everyone deserves his "chance of a lifetime."

Go back two decades, to that time when the South was beginning to stir, to a place called Bienville, a coastal town in the bayou country near the Gulf of Mexico. Back to a year in the life of Willie Croft, a forty-year-old bachelor lawyer who has resigned himself to a life of rumpled suits, cheap bourbon and a Monday morning clientèle's of drunks, derelicts and disturbers of the peace -- until one day he stumbles on a case that forever changes not only his life but the entire face of his town.

The novel begins with the discovery of oil on land so worthless that it is inhabited almost exclusively by poor black farmers and sharecroppers. When Willie Croft is asked to represent an old black woman who is trying to save her home and property, he uncovers a powerful secret: years before, the woman had given birth to two children fathered b the patriarch of Bienville's most prominent white family, the Holts -- the same family now engaged in trying to force her off her oil-rich property.

The result is that Willie is swept into a life he hardly knew existed -- into the world of his clients, the black Holts, including the remarkable schoolteacher, Daniel -- and into the world of his opponents, the white Holts, at the very pinnacle of Southern society.

And Willie finds himself deeply involved in a bittersweet romance with Whitney Loftin, a beautiful heiress of the Holt clan.

In As Summers Die Winston Groom has achieved asolute authenticity of time and place. He has, besides, demonstrated once again his superb storytelling gifts in a novel that tells an enthralling tale with consummate skill.

Condition: Used. Hardcover. Dust cover shows shelf wear, light discoloration and a bit of edge wear and tear. The back of the dust cover has a one inch tear at the bottom near the spine. Pages are tanning from age. Previous owner's "Library Of" stamp is on the front endpaper.

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