A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor

Philip Carver is a middle-aged rare book collector living in his small apartment in Manhattan, New York with his significant other, Holly Kaplan, an apartment deliberately far away from his family and their lifestyle. When Holly leaves Philip for a brief period of time, Philip receives two pleading phone calls requesting his return to Memphis from his two outlandish sisters. Because of the lonely state Philip finds himself in, he agrees to visit his sisters and help them in persuading their eighty-one year old father not to remarry. This journey triggers many thoughts about Philips childhood and family relationships that he had been avoiding or that had not occurred to him in years past, thoughts that change his outlook on his life and even on his father forever.
Philip Carver receives these two phone calls back to back on a Sunday evening from his two sisters, Betsy and Josephine. Both Betsy and Josephine beg Philip to help them persuade their father to cancel his remarriage with a younger Mrs. Clara Stockwell, seemingly as a type of revenge, because in past circumstances, all three siblings had experienced traumatic heartbreak when their father had somehow used his authority to prevent them from marrying their desired fiancé/fiancée. Philip agrees, and books his flight for the following morning. When he landed in Memphis, he was very surprised to see his father himself standing there waiting to pick him up, because under normal circumstances, his sisters would be the ones waiting for him. After he meets his father, he is immediately informed of his father's marriage with Clara occurring that afternoon, and surprisingly he supports this marriage. But sadly, Clara had run off so the marriage was canceled, and after that information was relayed to Philip, he left abruptly, returning to his apartment. Then, many weeks later, with Holly returned back to their apartment and his relationship with her mended, Philip receives another phone call requesting him to come with his sisters and his father to a mountain resort for vacation. He accepts this invitation, and the trip seems uneventful and meaningless up until the end, when Philip sees his long-lost love, which his father as well as his sisters had separated him from in previous years. Philip's old love was accompanied with her husband and also some children, so Philip does not try to renew their relationship. As well as this recognition with Philip's old love, Father also runs into a long lost friend of his, Mr. Lewis Shackleford. Father and Mr. Shackleford do renew their relationship, however, and weeks afterward still talk daily on the phone. They had even planned to set up a visit, where Father goes to Mr. Shackleford's house, which the sisters telephoned Philip about for his help once again in not letting Father go, but sadly, the day of the departure, Father gets a phone call stating that Mr. Lewis Shackleford had died in his sleep the night before. This event, ending Father's relationship with Mr. Shackleford, actually greatly benefitted Father's relationship with Philip. Philip then seems to take Mr. Shackleford's place by calling Father every week.
The novel A Summons to Memphis is mainly centered on different relationships, both healthy and poor. For the two sisters, Betsy and Josephine, for example, no real consistent, healthy relationship with people other than the relationship with themselves seems to exist. That seems to explain their foolish behavior: going out to the young people bars and wearing the latest styles when they are in their forties and fifties, always having a new boyfriend and joking about marriage, and always hindering their father's relationships with both women and men. In the end, Philip recognizes that their actions toward Father are mainly revengeful, and stops backing the sisters up and instead standing up for his father.
This novel also mainly centers on the affects change can have on a family as a whole, as in moving to another city. After Philip's family's move to Memphis from Nashville, the whole entire family changes, seemingly for the worse, with the exception of Father. His mother and his sisters both become more outspoken and less lady-like, and his brother enlists in the army and gets killed in the war by simply seeking to get away from his broken family. Philip also gets drafted in the war, but never actually fought, so it didn't amount to anything.
The novel A Summons to Memphis, written by Peter Taylor, is an interesting story mainly about the affects of change on an entire family living back during the days after WWII. I enjoyed this book very much. Sometimes the long paragraphs explaining in detail one concept became a bit hard to concentrate on, but overall, I found this story a very fast and enjoyable read, and I recommend it to anyone wishing to read something more challenging with a different type of style than the modern.