"fascinating relationship drama"

In 1957 in Los Angeles, oil heir Rudy Banning and his artist wife Rachel drink too much before driving their vehicle head on into a car containing singer Jimmy Peyton and his manager. All four die in the car accident. The Banning children Jud and Cale move into the home of their ruthless grandfather, a coldhearted affluent business mogul; Peyton's daughter Laurel remains with her devastated mother, his widow Kathryn.

Thirteen years later on Catalina Island, Laurel and Cale meet and fall in love. However, his grandfather forces Cale to choose between Laurel and medical school; he selects becoming a doctor. Laurel soon meets Cale's brother Jud and feelings grow between them while Cale is off at school.

Over the next three decades Cale holds grudges against his brother and the one woman he loved. Now the trio meet once again as Jud begins to court Laurel who turns to cardiologist Cale for heart surgery.

THE DAYS OF SUMMER is a fascinating relationship drama that follows the lives over several decades of two brothers and the woman they both desire connected initially by tragedy. The story line is a sudsy soap opera especially during the present era subplot and to a lesser degree in 1970. Still the three protagonists are fully developed leading to fun learning the outcome even though their triangle seems contrived.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted June 29, 2006

Summary

Spanning thirty years and three generations of Peyton women and Banning men, The Days of Summer is an epic drama that explores our deepest ties to family, the mistakes we make in the name of love, and is a reminder of our ability to hope, to forgive, and to find the courage to change.

In 1957, the Banning family leads a life of privilege, wealth, and domestic unhappiness. At the head of this California dynasty is oil magnate Victor Banning, a man of great power and even greater obsessions who is determined to teach his son and grandsons to be predators in his dog-eat-dog world.

Jimmy Peyton is a rising star in the music business, a young man with a bright future and no connection to the Bannings, until the fateful night their cars collide on a Los Angeles street, forever changing the lives and future of two innocent families.

Laurel Peyton, Jimmy's daughter, has lived her entire life in the shadow of grief. Though her mother, Kathryn, struggled to keep her daughter safe and secluded after the terrible accident that ruined their family, she cannot guard against the one danger she never expected: love.

In 1970, Victor's grandsons, Jud and Cale, meet the beautiful and spirited Laurel, and these two families cross paths once again, this time on a passionate course that pits brother against brother and mother against daughter, a clash of wills that gradually draws them all closer to the truth of their tragic connection.