Blog

Summer may officially be over, but that can't stop us from revisiting our favorite time of year through the pages of a great book. Today, Kathryn Williams --- author of THE LOST SUMMER --- reminisces about her childhood vacations spent at sleep-away camp and muses on just what makes those camp romances so special.



When I decided to write a book set at summer camp, there was one element I knew I had to include: a camp romance.

I went to an all-girls sleep-away camp for ten years, six as a camper and four as a counselor. Those three weeks each summer were some of the most carefree, side-splittingly funny, and exciting of my whole year, as evidenced by the fact that I started packing eight weeks before camp started (à la Field of Dreams, I thought “if I build it, it will come”).

A big part of the exhilaration my friends and I felt returning to camp each year was the promise of camp crushes. A boys’ camp preceded our girls’ camp, and a handful of male counselors would stay on in two capacities: 1) as manual laborers and 2) as the objects of affection of one hundred girls aged 8 to 19. (Talk about an ego trip.) We called them “Buzzards,” and despite the unpleasantness of that nickname, we crushed on them hard.

I still remember lying on my top bunk at Rest Hour and imagining the end-of-the-world scenario that would bring my 11-year-old self and a Buzzard named Cole together on a tropical deserted island. I thought he looked like Tom Cruise (pre-couch-jumping crazy, of course). There was a lot of hazy light and slow motion in this daydream. (Note: He was at least ten years older than me and oblivious to my existence.)

In THE LOST SUMMER, my character Helena has a serious crush on an older male counselor named Ransome. (No, it’s not a coincidence that his name rhymes with “handsome” and looks an awful lot like “ransom.”) She compares the counselors from the boys’ camp across the lake to the guys she knows in her everyday life back at home: “They were like a lost tribe of boys who were much cooler, much hotter, and much more elusive than the ones who roamed the real world.”

What is it about camp guys? Is it the tan? The idyllic setting? The intoxicating scent of Gold Bond? Or just the novelty of boys you don’t see every day in Chem class?

I thought a lot about what makes camp romances special as I wrote about the budding relationship between Helena and Ransome, and I came to the conclusion it’s the heady combination of freedom and safety that camp brings. Where else are you able to walk the tightrope between childhood and adulthood with such a safety net? Of course, as Helena learns, you can still fall, but there’s a wide net of love and acceptance to catch you.

If you loved camp (and camp crushes) the way I did, or if you’re just curious what the whole camp hullabaloo is about, then I hope you’ll enjoy THE LOST SUMMER. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

-- Kathryn Williams