Transformation Summer, Sean Smith’s first novel is, on its face, a “coming of age” story about sixteen-year-old Seth at a time when his divorcing parents are transforming his life – and theirs. The book is set in the late 1970s, when the changing social fabric of life was transforming American families, according to Mr. Smith.
In the book, his mother, Joanne, determined to look for some answers for herself and to give Seth that opportunity, books them into a camp – Toward Transformation – on the Monterey coast in California. Seth and Joanne travel to the camp from their small town in Oregon — Seth with his burning anger and confusion, Joanne with her questions and concerns about Seth. The all-volunteer camp program offers a wide variety of “Transeminars,” for adults and children, taught by other Transformation guests. As the camp’s co-founder/co-leader explains to Seth, no one is obligated to participate in the program, but everybody helps with various tasks in maintaining the place during the two weeks. Besides the adult campers, there are twenty kids at Transformation, many of them teens and preteens.
Seth and Joanne are quickly absorbed into the camp’s social structure. Unfettered by required activities and skeptical about any positive prospects, Seth joins the group of teenagers, all of whom are veterans of the camp. In that group, Seth discovers depths beyond surface impressions, both in his companions and in himself. He displays an unusually perceptive ability to understand that the way people present themselves is not necessarily their true essence. As Sean Smith told Fig City News, Seth “doesn’t take things at face value. He challenges what happens and why.” The promised “transformation” extends to others in the camp, and to the camp itself. In fact, the novel is about discovery as a key to transformation. Years later, Seth is still processing what happened at Toward Transformation.
Mr. Smith’s impression is that in the 1970s Americans seemed to be more introspective about themselves and their lives than in previous generations. There were more avenues for transformation than those offered in communes or alternative lifestyles, he observed. “It wasn’t just a ‘hippies going back to the land’ situation; people in middle-class suburbs were looking at seminars, retreats, various programs and experiences that could help them sort out what they wanted and how they could achieve it. There was a rearranging of the furniture.”
Mr. Smith, who has lived in Newton for thirty-two years, says Transformation Summer is not really based on his own life – but he did have the experience of going to a special place on a regular basis – a youth program run by a local Quaker meeting – and enjoying a shared sense of community. “The main characters in the book are composites of people I knew — some from school, or the youth program, or other places,” says Mr. Smith, who grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley, the son of divorced parents.
Mr. Smith has had a long-term interest in Celtic music, which naturally brought him to Boston, a city steeped in the variety of Irish music. He is a professional non-fiction writer, both at Boston College and at BostonIrish.com (formerly the Boston Irish Reporter), where he does features about Irish and other Celtic music. Although Transformation Summer is his first published work of fiction, he also has written an unpublished short story and has worked on several unfinished novels.
How did Transformation Summer come into being? Mr. Smith described a drive through the Berkshires on the Mass Pike in early 2017, returning home from a visit with his mother, where he suddenly “got a flash of inspiration about two people in some mountain setting like what I saw through my windshield. I immediately started thinking, ‘OK, how do they know each other? What are they doing in this place?’” As his trip home continued, he explored the possible connections between these characters and what had brought them to that location. By the time he got back to Newton, he had the basic framework for his book.
Mr. Smith took about a year-and-a-half to finish the first draft of the book, then another year to revise the manuscript before seeking a publisher. But late in 2020, his mother and his wife both developed serious health issues and died within three months of each other in 2021. “Everything else in my life just receded into the background,” he says.
Then, in August of 2022, Transformation Summer was accepted by Atmosphere Press and published this past June.
Mr. Smith finds that taking time for walks – including to and from work – helps nourish his imagination, allowing him to develop ideas and inspire his creative spirit. He hopes to resume work on one of his unfinished novels or develop the short story into a novel.
