This tender and beautiful novella from Robert Nathan almost defies description, and that, in essence, was this writer’s genius. Nearly forgotten by all but a few, his gentle stories of love embed themselves in our heart and soul, becoming a part of who we are and how we view love.

Here, as he did in his most famous work, Portrait of Jennie, Nathan takes a situation which would be scoffed at today — the world now so tarnished that it cannot allow such beauty to exist — and he makes it work. A man almost — but not yet — old enough to be a young orphan girl’s father, hires her to help out three days a week, while she stays with a family insensitive to her need for love and affection.

Set around Nathan’s beloved Cape Cod area, there is a feel of the sea and its timelessness which Nathan imbues into the story. The narrator views fourteen-year-old Johanna as nothing more than a child at first. His observations about her, and how we as human beings react to any small affection when deprived of love — or anything to call our own — are quietly profound. Johanna’s reaction to his gift of a dog is a perfect example, as she chooses to hold it tightly only when no one else is watching.

But despite Johanna's haunted simplicity, she is becoming more than a girl. She discovers a kind of emotional heaven, and haven, in a young boy’s affections and attention. But when tragedy occurs on Cape Cod, it causes her to withdraw from the world, and wait for that winter of the heart to return.

Though the reader can sense what’s coming, the narrator is still oblivious. A kindly priest, however, is not. He helps the caring bachelor rescue the girl so she can snap out of her denial and move forward. There is more, of course, because Robert Nathan always wrote about love. Though the story is about more than love, its focal point is the blossoming young Johanna's need to belong. The narrator only gradually realizes that Johanna is someone he cannot live without — no matter how long he must wait.

Wistful and ethereal, the very premise of this story would be tawdry in another writer’s hands, but guided by Nathan, it reaches a loveliness and purity seldom found in American letters. Long After Summer is a story of another time, and must be viewed as such in order to enjoy its innocence, and its message.

What Nathan had to say about love, about being human, was always told in a gentle yet profound manner, and no more so than in Long After Summer. This easily ranks among Robert Nathan’s finest works, a magical trip into the human heart, firmly rooted in a more romantic and less jaded era. A must for fans of this unique — yet sadly — almost forgotten writer. ( )

Like a Joseph C. Lincoln but not quite as memorable. ( )