After his mother’s death, 17-year-old Adam is sent to stay with his uncle Henry on his houseboat in the west country for the summer. Henry, a divinity scholar-turned guru and spiritual leader, belongs to the 60s free love movement, an era that already seems obsolete here in 1970s Somerset. The bourgeois-minded residents want him and his hippy friends – including Strawberry, a macrobiotic diet-obsessed American girl living in a shed in the woods – out of their village, but he refuses to leave without a fight, and Adam finds himself drawn into the struggle.
Despite the losses that litter the text, it’s a comparatively gentle coming-of-age story, and Lott is excellent when it comes to the psychology of a grieving adolescent. The conclusion didn’t quite pack the punch it might have, but the languor of the long hot summer setting echoes the treacly stupor of the plot.
The Last Summer of the Water Strider is published by Simon & Schuster (£16.99). Click here the buy it for £12.99
