Eden Close

Eden Close by Anita Shreve
Fiction
Anita Shreve has managed to free evil from the dark and unleash it on a brilliantly lit summer day. This horror hides in the mundane details of peeling paint and broken steps, laundry hung in a backyard, and insects buzzing through soft, dry grass. Childhood memories are imbued with a patina of depravity as maturity seeks to understand a tragedy too complex for a young boy. The omnipresent evil is not supernatural but as near as a heart or mind, and as unexpected as a shattered mirror reflecting a painful glint from its nest of weeds. Through an atmosphere of impending doom, a path of relentless hope shines leading to a calamitous truth and a poignant redemption.
This is Anita Shreve's first novel.
show more Recommended by Geo, July 2005 show less

3.5***

When his mother dies, Andrew, an advertising exec in New York City, returns to the family’s upstate New York farm for the funeral. Intending to stay only a few days, he gets caught up in memories of his childhood, of the girl next door, and of the tragic event that changed all their lives.

Eden was a foundling, left in a box near the Close farm’s driveway. Unable to have children of their own, Jim and Edith Close immediately decided to keep her and filed all the legal paperwork to adopt Eden. Her father had always wanted children and he doted on the girl. But Edith was decidedly less welcoming. The frostiness between mother and daughter grew more pronounced as Eden achieved puberty and began the transformation from a tomboy show more to a stunning beauty.

Andrew having grown up with Eden, treated her like a younger sister. He was somewhat uncomfortable when one of his friends began dating Eden. And then one summer night when Eden was fifteen, Andrew and his parents were awakened by screams and the sound of at least one gunshot. Mr Close was dead, and Eden was wounded. And the boy everyone thought responsible was dead before the police could question him.

The novel is told mostly from Andrew’s point of view. We learn of his marriage, and his pending divorce. We see him at a loose ends, the trip home having unmoored him. He cannot seem to make a decision about selling the house or returning to work. Rather he becomes more and more fixated on Eden Close and what happened to her.

There is some mystery to unravel here regarding that long-ago summer night. Andrew has always been a person who doesn’t really see things, even when they are right in front of him, and he will have to open his eyes to the truth before he can move forward. And Eden will have to learn to forgive herself and believe she is worthy of more. show less

An absorbing tale about two families, connected by the horror that struck one of them.

Andrew returns to his childhood home for his mother's funeral. His next-door neighbor had been looking out for her until she died. As Andrew sets about putting things in order, he thinks back on the two days that caused sudden change in his neighbors' lives. The first was when a baby was found on the doorstep, and Mr. Close wanted to keep it. The second happened years later, when the baby, now a teen, was blinded in an attack in which her father was killed.

Andrew, in his teen years, had become fond of the precocious tomboy Eden. After the attack, however, he had little time to say good by before he headed off to college. All these years later he has show more a lot of questions in his head about what might have been. Learning that Eden still lives next door, protected by her mother, he wants to see her. But Mrs. Close is not welcoming. He finds a way.

In his secret meetings with Eden Andrew learns more about her life in the last several years and about who she is now. He also learns more than he meant to about the day the gunshots rang out. show less

This was the first of Shreve's books that I read, and I liked it well enough to continue reading her fiction (I believe I've read all her other novels). A recently divorced man returns to the home of his youth to discover his next-door neighbor (who was a best friend and childhood sweetheart) still living next door, having been blinded many years previously in a violent incident.

I can say maybe this book is also a bit contrived, but less so than A Wedding In December and I enjoyed the characters much more. Its maybe a tad unbelievable, but the affair was lovely and the ending was uplifting. I would probably recommend this.

Lyrical. The pace of the book surprised me, it was slow and descriptive in a very good way. This is not generally what I default to, but my mom reads a lot of Anita Shreve and I was curious and this one caught my attention.

At first I didn't think I was going to like this book. It was slightly confusing because it jumped back and forth without warning. I'm glad I stuck with it thought because it ended up being a pretty good story.