Book Review: A Summons to New Orleans

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

A Summons to New Orleans     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Barbara Hall
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Woman Main Character
Simon & Schuster, Aug 2000, $23.00, 318 pp.

After fifteen years of marriage, her husband, taking all their cash and running off with a waitress, leaves Virginian Nora Preston humiliated. Adding to her worries, the FBI seeks her spouse for big time tax evasion. Nora has taken up calligraphy to supplement the money she sometimes receives from her fugitive husband. Meanwhile their son wants to spend the summer with his absentee father and her mother walks around with an “I told you” smirk.

When out of the blue her college roommate Simone calls and offers her a free vacation in New Orleans, Nora grabs the invitation like a drowning person clutches a life preserver. Nora arrives to learn that their other roommate Poppy is there too. Though happy to see Poppy, Nora can tell her college friend is radically changed. The three college friends have come together because Simone needs their support through the ordeal of a rape trial that occurred a year ago.

In the tradition of Belva Plain and Barbara Delinsky, Barbara Hall has written a thought-provoking novel that will appeal to fans of contemporary women’s fiction. The ex spouses are actually human and even likable, as the audience understands and condemns their self-indulging motives. The female trio learns much about one another and themselves as they spend time together in New Orleans. It teaches them and the reader life’s most endearing lessons and how not to repeat past mistakes.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner