Customer Reviews

Evening (Vintage Contemporaries)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

After spending a couple of years on my bookshelf, I was finally tempted to read this novel. Evening is unlike anything I've ever read before. The prose is not clear-cut, with ramblings and confusion throughout the entire novel, but once readers get into the flow of the story, this morphine-induced reality-versus-fantasy begins to take shape. Evening tells the story of Ann Lord, a 65-year-old cancer patient on the verge of death. Family and friends take vigil at her bedside, and through the haze and confusion of Ann's heavily sedated mind are many ramblings about unconnected things, short memories that pass through in an instant then quickly dissolve. Only one thing remains sharp in Ann's mind: the weekend she spent at her best friend's wedding and the man she met there with whom she fell in love. Harris Arden was not just a weekend fling, he became the pivotal moment in Ann's life from which love, loss, hope and reality begin. Susan Minot's stunning, eloquent prose writes of a love story between Ann and Harris; a life story involving Ann's three husbands and her five children; and a death story of the final moments of a woman's life and those things that can never be left behind. Choppy at times, confusing at others, but this unique writing style creates an authentic other world where consciousness slips between reality and dreams. Excellent and powerful; a vivid portrayal of the end of a life.

Although Minot's style of writing takes some getting used to, it is well-suited to the morphine-induced deathbed conversations. It evokes a hazy, confused and dreamlike atmosphere. The book disappoints, however, because it is impossible to feel anything substantive towards any of the characters. Most -- particulary Ann and her lover, Arden -- come across as shallow, selfish and utterly self-absorbed. Was the real tragedy of Ann's life that she didn't get to spend it with the only man she ever "loved," or rather that she didn't truly love anyone but herself? She treated the husbands and children in her life with indifference and occasional annoyance. She only mentions in passing the death of her own son. Instead she focuses on a weekend of sex with a stranger as the high point of her life -- not marriage, not childbirth, not her families or other experiences. If that is not a life wasted, then I don't know what is! The only thing that saves this novel is the beautiful but difficult dreamlike prose, and the desire of the reader to get to the REAL tragedy or love of Ann's life, which never materializes.

Broadway and television actress, Emmy Award winner for her performance in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, Kathryn Walker has a varied and busy career. Born in Philadelphia she made her debut in an off Broadway production in 1971. It didn't take long for her to reach Broadway in such stellar offerings as "Private Lives" and "Wild Honey." Her film roles are many, and she has often appeared on daytime television. This is an actress perfectly suited to give voice to Minot's superb story of love and loss.

In the summer of 1954 Ann Grant traveled from New York City to coastal Maine to be a bridesmaid in a good friend's wedding. She was 25, and it was there that she met Harris Arden. She had heard his name mentioned, but she had expected someone older. He was young, handsome, and they fell in love, almost immediately, fully, and passionately.

That was a weekend she would always remember because Harris was engaged to a girl in Chicago, and he would marry her. Ann, too, would marry, several times.

In the present narrative it is years later, we hear: "In her sixty-five years Ann Lord had kept herself busy and was not particularly reflective but now forced to lie here day after day she found herself visited by certain reflections. Life would not hold any more surprises for her, she thought, all that was left was for her to get through this last thing."

Ann is dying, at times lucid, at other times seemingly lost in delirium where she relives that weekend of long ago.

An incredible writer, Susan Minot has fashioned a singular story of love and loss, life and death. To hear this author's exquisite prose is a rare treat, to hear it read by Kathryn Walker enriches the experience.

- Gail Cooke

This novel baffles me. I instinctively gave it 3 stars for craft alone; Minot writes beautifully and her ambitious, omniscient rendering of a dying older woman's thoughts is credible and compelling. She does an extraordinary job of shifting between and blending past and present, memory and action. Minot eases Death in early and brings him softly, romantically along to her inevitable final scene.

That said, I withhold two stars for the traits that hold this novel back. First, Minot has chosen to tread familiar turf-- the lives and loves of charming, drunken, clannish, wealthy New Englanders. The characters are largely as wispy and as WASPy as her Monkeys crowd. In fact, aside from Ann Grant and her one true love, Harris Arden, we are treated to a razor thin two-dimensionality. In the first 75 pages Minot introduces a bewildering array of Lilas and Margies and Buddys and Lizzies and Gigis and on and on, some dead, some alive, all dating and marrying and cavorting their vapid lives away. And though the types may be Cheeveresque, Minot's inability here to hook the reader on this overstock of characters is not. Indeed, by the time one of these boys dies two hundred pages in--in one of the novel's Central Events--I could care less.

Conversely, the blandness of these characters makes it relatively easy for Minot to build up her towering central "love" story. But *is* it a love story? Through all the minutiae of the relationship Minot dredges from Grant's mind I was struck that it is far more a story of lust than love. We are treated to a very physical description of what is essentially a weekend fling. Ann and Harris barely talk; they are too busy catching one another's eye and getting it on. Minot's lovemaking scenes are exceptionally well done, but in the end I had to wonder: Was the pain-wracked old woman merely reminiscing about the best sex she'd ever had?

And lastly, I found Ms. Minot's lack of punctuation a maddening artifice. I concede that the dispensation with quotation marks and the page-plus run-ons do create more of a dreamlike, inward dialog. But it also makes a reader work overly hard in a novel that is already timeshifting like crazy. After fording the third or fourth stream of consciousness, I found myself skipping and skimming to get on to the readable stuff. Minot tips her hat to Faulkner in a flyleaf, but has perhaps failed to recognize that Faulkner got away with lean punctutation because he was Faulkner.

And hence the bafflement: Despite my critique,I think Evening is well worth reading.

Susan Minot's "Evening" is like no other book I have every read. It is full of beautiful prose, lovely poetry. As I read about Ann's lost youth, I felt an overwhelming sadness of loss, and also a great emotional happiness, thinking about my own youth.
I am guessing that those who gave the book low reviews are young. You must be "of a certain age" to connect with this book. I content you must be old enough to have grown children, to remember another simpler era of your youth, and to have fond and not-so-fond memories of special people who came into and out of your life. I'm close to 60 and found Ann's age (65) unnerving, as I thought of my own mortality.

There are books that touch us because we are close to them, and some that we're not ready to read yet. For those who didn't like the book, wait a few years and try again.

Susan Minot writes a compelling story. Ann Lord is a woman at the end of her life. She is bedridden with cancer and through her pain and drug induced sleep we are allowed into her mind and her memories. Ann has had a full life with several husbands and five children. Throughout it all she feels that a piece of her is missing. Her heart was given to a man she met at a friend's wedding many years before. For Ann, he was her soul mate. She is devastated and broken hearted when the truth of his situation is revealed to her. She carries on with her life but is never the same. She is emotionally crippled for life. This is obvious in her other memories when she really doesn't come across as a truly loving mother or wife.

The stream of consciousness manner in which Ann's story is told is confusing at times but well worth the effort. The writing is beautiful and evokes much emotion in the reader. I found it almost heart wrenching to even read. I truly felt for this character. So many of us live with the memory of the one that got away...for Ann it was all consuming. In the end, we can only hope that she has found the peace that has evaded her all of her life.

A wonderful writer not to be overlooked.

I liked this book. It was a quick read, which is refreshing, because most of the books I pick up are huge and, at times, overwhelming. This book was a snapshot of a life. The author played with words and sounds in the text, in a way that was different and that truly created a mood. At times it was almost like poetry. If you're looking for a perfect love story, don't read this. The characters are full of flaws, and you may even be disenchanted at times. I was, and it verged on disappointment, but it was real and, for the most part, they remained sympathetic. What this story does is make you think about your life and forces you to think about choices you make. Life should not be about regret.

I was sorely disappointed in Evening. The concept was interesting and parts of the novel contained beautiful descriptions and dialouge, but other sections just seemed incoherent. An even larger problem for me was that the "love story" centered around a very problematic situation. I'll avoid spoiling the book, but let's just say that unless you are a die-hard romantic you might want to try something else. By the way, this was my office's book club selection for August and no one enjoyed the book.

I agree with the writer from Burnaby, B.C. As one who has sat by a bedside and watched a parent die, this book was incredibly evocative and realistic. I found myself crying several times from the memories that her writing stirred in me.

I truly loved this book. It was among the best novels I have read in years. It was beautifully written; lyrical, poetic and expressive. Minot was able to bring back the feelings of lost love, and of that first moment when two eyes meet and electrically connect. Anyone who has loved and lost someone -- whether it be a parent, or an unrequited love -- will find truth in this novel. I truly understood and could relate to the main character (Ann Lord), and maybe that is why I loved this novel so much. I would highly recommend this book. I will keep this on my shelf, long after I have recycled the novels that have been recommended to me through "Oprah's Book Club."

I read through the review's of other readers and just felt the need to comment. Some didn't "get" Susan Minot's style. It's not just a little bit like James Joyce,(no slouch)and it seemed very correct when trying to capture the thoughts and feelings of a woman in her final dance with life and death -- not to mention morphine. I had no trouble with it, although it required a bit of "letting go"....which I enjoyed.

I do think that anyone who has closely witnessed a loved one endure the lonely passing of life to cancer, might be strongly affected, as I was, by this book. I saw that another reader was annoyed by the seemingly "perfect" life had by Ann. Perfect? Somehow that escaped me. Besides, the point was that it comes down to this...it ends for all of us. We are alone, truly, as we die. While others hover around us, what is left is only a reflection of the life we lived and the choices we made. No one really *knew* Ann,except Ann,although many people had loved her. She had regrets that haunted her,and lots of "what if's" to deal with as she "conversed" with Harris, the one it all boiled back down to. It tugged at my heart deeply, and I look forward to anything else Susan Minot might write.