Still Is the Summer Night

Set in rural Wisconsin in the 1880s, Still Is the Summer Night (1937) is the first of August Derleth's several historical novels in his Sac Prairie saga. We are introduced to the Halder family-old Captain Halder, consumed with memories of his service in the Civil War; the brothers Ratio and Alton, who find themselves in a largely unspoken but intense emotional conflict over Ratio's wife, Julie. As Ratio's increasingly brazen philandering alienates Julie's affections, she naturally inclines toward Alton, who has nurtured a love for her for years. This domestic drama is set amidst the farmlands of Wisconsin, where the eternal verities of the changing seasons and the teeming earth form a quiet backdrop to human struggles that threaten to explode in uncontrollable hatred and violence.