The Dead of Summer

Gr 8 Up–Now that Ollie’s mom is finally on the mend from her terrible sickness, they are returning to their island home of Anchor’s Mercy, ME, and to Singing House, the bed and breakfast they have run for musical prodigy Ollie’s whole life. The island’s other eclectic inhabitants are glad to have them back, though deep tension lingers between Ollie and his lifelong best friends, Bash and Elisa. A new boy he meets on the ferry, Sam, seems to fit right in with the musical, queer, lively inhabitants of Anchor’s Mercy, though things quickly take a turn for the weird when a new illness begins to spread amongst the inhabitants after a tropical storm. Some residents clearly know more than they intend to ever share, but finding the real truths underneath the veneer may be Ollie and his friends’ only hope of survival. Converging timelines bounce readers from Ollie’s return home to the days after a mysterious, but clearly traumatic, event and back again, slowly unscrambling a surrealistic roller coaster of terrifying events across interview transcripts, drawings, and Ollie’s narration. Exploring the deep ties that exist among families, biological and found, as well as the environmental effects of industry and a small town’s understandable desire to hide its dark secrets, La Sala’s witty, emotional characters and a packed plot combine with truly disturbing body horror in this intense story.