[1][2] Young mother Tomoko spends a summer vacation at Izu peninsula with her three children and her sister-in-law Yasue.
When the two older children suddenly disappear, Yasue runs down into the sea in an attempt to find them, but suffers a heart attack from which she eventually dies.
During the next months, Tomoko is torn between feelings of guilt, a longing for sympathy for her loss, and fear for her youngest son.
Death in Midsummer, written after Mishima's first trip overseas from December 1951 to May 1952,[3] was initially published in October 1952 in the magazine Shinchō.
[13] In a 1966 review for The New York Times, critic Robert Trumbull saw Mishima's story in parts as "a sociological study" which "plunges into dark psychic depth".