Scott Sommer

Scott Sommer (February 20, 1951 – November 18, 1993) was an American author.[1] He graduated from Columbia High School (1969) and Ohio Wesleyan University (1973).[2]

Sommer was the author of four novels and one collection of short stories.

• 1979 - Nearing's Grace
• 1981 - Lifetime (Collection of Short Stories)
• 1982 - Last Resort
• 1985 - Hazzard's Head
• 1989 - Still Lives

The Los Angeles Times review of Nearing's Grace noted:

The sensibility of this funny, unpretentious debut novel about growing up absurd in high school is duly hip; it's as if Tom McGuane went back in time for a second look at the senior prom. Perpetually stoned Henry Nearing juggles, among others, a kamikaze father and an acid casualty brother while lusting after Grace Chance, the class nymphomaniac. Their love affair is the most ill-fated school-daze encounter since Dobie Gillis fell for Thalia Menninger."[3]

The Raleigh News and Observer said of Nearing's Grace:

Henry's rite of passage during the two weeks before graduation is outrageous, funny, sad and infuriating all at once ... The pot, the alcohol, the skinny dipping at the quarry, the Quaalude interludes, the rivalries. the seeking the slapstick all seem very real. Henry Nearing could easily be the boy next door or your own. He may even be their generations' Holden Caulfield.[4]

The Sacramento Bee said:

Nearing’s Grace is a delight to read: laced with slang, it moves with the dizzying speed of a benzedrine freak, zipzipzip through a procession of Seconals, Quaaludes, acid, hash and sex, portraying the highlights and insights of adolescent angst as Henry Nearing discovers the hard way that 'Growing up is learning to take what you can get.'[5]

The Guardian called Nearing's Grace "a bright, first novel, the remorseless tone of which, admittedly, begins to pall, but which is quick and very intelligent."[6]

Discussing Lifetime in The New York Times Book Review, Jonathan Baumbach wrote:

A kind of hip, post-1960's despair informs this impressive collection of two novellas and three stories, the charm of the style in counterpoise to the anguish of the experience. To survive, Scott Sommer's characters take refuge in booze, drugs, sex, madness - anything to take the edge off loneliness and pain ... Scott Sommer is a genuine discovery. He is a young writer - Lifetime is his second book - of exceptional resources of language and vision, an ironic chronicler of social depravity among fallen innocents. While these sad dazzling fictions are a legacy of growing up cool in the 60's, they are also - the other side of that sensibility - oldfashionedly romantic, disarming dirges for a world hopelessly lost.[7]

The Chicago Tribune wrote of Lifetime:

Sommer's stylistic range is as varied and dazzling as his cast of characters, whether a 10 year-old drug runner; an, affluent family ensnared in greed, masochism, cruelty, and double-dealing; or any of the other drifters and wishful thinkers and throwbacks to the '60s. Life is a transient nightmare; drugs, sex, the unfulfilling pastimes that only temporarily assuage its loneliness. Hang in there. Be cool. Maybe we'll come to our senses. That's the message in these five short stories, told with sorrow, compassion, warmth, remarkable perception, and a wry, wistful humor.[8]

In a review of Lifetime in The Detroit Free Press, Susan Moore wrote:

There are so many short story writers these days, it's hard to get excited over a newly published collection by one. But in Scott Sommer's case, this would be a shame. Don't look to Sommer's volume of five short stories for a comic boost to your flagging spirits: The only boost you'll get Is from the wonder of his achievement. His writing is remarkable for its skill, range of expression and conception ... Sommer shows an uncanny ability to suspend his own reality and enter the more askew worlds of his characters, trying on their values and perspectives. This is at the heart, I suppose, of what makes a good writer. Sommer is no longer on his way. He is clearly there.[9]

Sommer discussed and read from Lifetime on WNYC radio's The Writer's Almanac on August 11, 1981, a recording of which is still available.[10]

Writing in the Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger, Mike Hall wrote:

It occurred to me halfway through Scott Sommer's Last Resort that I wasn't paying any attention to the plot. I was clinging on every well-chosen word, but I didn't care where they were taking me. It was the immediate thrill I was seeking, not the long-range result. It seems safe to assume that happens to most readers of Scott Sommer, a man who has been compared to Salinger and Vonnegut for exactly that reason.[11]

In her review of Last Resort in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Gail Gilliland wrote:

The hero of this novel by the consistently good Scott Sommer exhorts us, "Name someone who has graduated from their tricycle not demented with grief" ... Sommer may be the first writer to have his generation down this pat since Hemingway or Fitzgerald. His themes are universal ... but his message has been translated into the pop-rock of the young. His is the "lost generation" of the '70s.[12]

In his review of Hazzard's Head in the New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus wrote:

Hazzard's Head refers to the mental universe of Jack Hazzard, a thirtyish New York writer fractured into thirteen selves - Mother, Father, Lover, Punk, Depressive and others - each competing for dominion ... Hazzard's Head, in other words, is less a literary invention than a case history of that familiar shambles, the typical American male, captive of his resentment, anger and shame, sentenced to re-enact in adulthood the petty traumas of his youth. And though the author has perhaps been led astray by the orthodoxies of psychoanalysis, the result is shrewd, funny, daring and unexpectedly moving.[13]

The review of Still Lives in the Orlando Sentinel noted:

Scott Sommer has written a compelling tale of [the protagonist] Frankle's struggle to put his life together while being plagued by the disordered and intertwining lives of his friends. Still Lives also gives a glimpse of life in New York City and how it can come up short in fulfilling some people's dreams ... Despite the sometimes depressing events that fall upon Frankle and his friends, Still Lives isn't downbeat.[14]

In its review of the same novel, Dayton Daily News wrote:

Still Lives is fast and fun. Just like Frankle, it bounces from hopelessness to humor with reckless abandon. There's a smattering of drugs, sex and violence, but its purpose is not to sell the book. Sommer wants everything — characters, plot, style, symbolism, word choice, everything — to work perfectly. The beauty is that virtually nothing appears to be contrived.[15]

The Anniston Star summed up its review:

Like writer Scott Sommer's previous books, among them "Nearing's Grace," "Last Resort," and "Hazard's Head," "Still Lives" is funny, up-to-the minute, and unexpectedly tender.[16]

Sommer was the screenwriter of the film CrissCross starring Goldie Hawn. His novel Nearing's Grace was made into the 2005 feature film Nearing Grace.[17] He appeared as an extra in Crossing Delancey and Knots Landing.

The Writer's Voice offered the "Scott Sommer Fiction Award" annually until 1999. The winner received $1,000 and a special reading.