The Sea and Summer

Best example of climate fiction I've 25 yrs old but mostly feels prophetic rather than dated

A dystopian story of Melbourne between about 2040 and 2060. Rising sea levels brought on by climate change have flooded the lower parts of the city and are creeping higher. People are separated into two social strata, the Sweet are the higher ground dwellers with employment, power, and influence, and the Swill are those living amid the flood waters. Tall towers have been built for them, and meagre food and services are provided by the government increasingly stretched by the demand.

The Conway family start out as Sweet but with the death of the father are cast down into the Fringe, not quite Swill but with no employment and rejected by their old world. They meet Jimmy Kovacs, the nearby tower boss and protection racketeer. He takes a shine to the widow and her two young sons. The bulk of the novel is the story of these four.

One son is smart and gets elevated for training by the government. The other is a numbers savant and is sought out by black marketeers. Jimmy holds together a whole tower of Swill by strength of personality and mob boss mentality, and extends his influence into the lives of the two growing boys to keep them safe. A crisis occurs soon after the half way point that threatens the whole city and because of their involvement looks as if it will drag them all down with it.

Each chapter of the novel is written first person from the POV of one or other of the characters. This means taking note of the chapter title as it can be confusing. The author gives us deep insight into the thinking of each one as sometimes the same event is covered by two or three characters and we see the variance of understanding of each person. Turner shows that he has great skill in writing interpersonal relationships as this technique could easily become a mess of head-hopping. He knows how and when to pit people against each other, and he knows how to bring them together.

There was an early trope that annoyed me where somebody says, "I've written a novel ..." and it looked as if the book was to be a 'novel within a novel' thing. Luckily Turner's skill as an author and commenter on human life rose above it. In the early pages I had a three star rating in mind for that initial clumsiness but that rose to 4.5 by the end.

Considering that this was first released in 1987 conceptually it has stood the test of time. Plot wise there are a couple of character limitation's, but I have not let that stand in the way of a very thematic book.

Author George Turner came to my attention because he won the Miles Franklin award in 1966 for his novel The Cupboard Under the Stairs. I have been after a copy of that book for many a long year and have seen it for sale at some exorbitant prices that I am not willing to pay, but it has recently become available by a small publisher and will get a copy as soon as I can. Turner, based on this novel The Summer and the Sea is a very gifted writer and story teller and I am keen to read further. The quality of this story was recognised on release by eventually winning the Arthur C Clark Award in 1988.

This is first and foremost an Australian novel and with that one based in Melbourne and its suburbs, nowhere else. It cannot be misconstrued as elsewhere for several reasons. Newport a veritable working class suburb for starters plays a large role in terms of place. Others such as Balwyn and Richmond to name but a couple have roles to play with the city centre, St Kilda Road, its “derelict concert hall” (Hamner Hall) and the Princess Theatre featuring at times. Further afield there are the Dandenong's and Baw Baw mentioned. A kookaburra laughs at one point and Kangaroos are extinct due to the pressure of feeding an expanding population.

The language of the underclass (Swill and Fringe) is heavy strine, and becomes a distinct dialect that emerged in just a generation to the point that it has become indistinguishable to those that work for or are the ruling and upper classes (Sweet) and make no contact with the underclass. It could be said that the Sweet represents the ruling/moneyed/technocrat class, the Fringe loosely the old middle class and the vast majority, the Swill the old working lower socio economic class. I was reminded of the old Australian 6 o'clock swill term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_o%27clock_swill

There is a nod to the literature of Australia past with reference to The Lucky Country. This is a book by Donald Horne and the term itself can at times be used as an insult or with irony as it does in this book. Slang is evident such as “Chewy” for chewing gum. This term was used when I was at school and may well be used today by school kids. I am also reminded of the term “Chewy on your boot”. To quote an internet search “A derogatory phrase called out at AFL (Australian Rules Football) matches (the imputation being that the caller hopes that the footballer has chewing gum stuck on his boot, so that he can't kick the ball properly) “. Any reader of this book can search the many references made and will be lead to Australiana.

The story is in 2 parts. The Autumn People and The Sea and The Summer. The Autumn People are in the very distant future in what seems to be a utopia. An archaeologist, Lena, takes an actor, Andra, via a form of hovercraft from what is called The New City (in the present Dandenong Ranges and being now above the flooded lowlands) to a Swill tower, Tower Twenty Three, which is visible above the water line. The actor wished to research for a play he wants to write and perform in. When discussing with Lena his plans for the play she gives him her unpublished manuscript of a novel she has written about the life of Billy Kovacs, Tower Twenty Three boss, which he reads. This is the vast majority of this novel and is about the Greenhouse Culture of the times from 2041 through 2061, thus a novel within a novel. To say much about the plot would give too much away.

George Turner has been a smart enough writer to make this as enduring read, even nearly 40 years after release. In the future will there be greenhouse induced floods that make large tracts unlivable, worldwide economic collapse, over population, mass starvation as just some of the events as told in the novel within the novel? Who knows, but be that as it may the dates can easily be changed and the book will still be a dystopian nightmare no matter when it is read into the future. The Sea and the Summer is only a novel in manuscript form, after all. There is a sense of the characters having few redeeming features for long periods of the novel within the novel. The collapse of society along with the ever present drowning of the living space brings out the fear of ‘others' be that for power/economic reasons or be that due to class and/or race differences. The degrading of Swill people and their very surrounds is all-pervading.

The US edition of this book was published with the title The Drowning Towers for some unknown reason. IMO the deep thinker about what this book offers will prefer The Sea and the Summer, a far superior title.


“This is Elwood and there was a beach here once. I used to paddle here. Then the water came up and there were the storm years and the pollution, and the water became too filthy'. ‘It must be terrible over there in Newport when the river floods', she continues: ‘A high tide covers the ground levels of the tenements'”


“Mum is dead . . . Once, she said very forcefully, ‘I've had a good life, Francis. So full.' Full, I thought, of what would have been avoided in a saner world. Billy came in later, but by then she was rambling about the past, about summertime and the glistening sea.”

Science Fiction at its best, recommended to those that look to sleep well.