Evening

Ann Lord is lying in “the last room,” dying of cancer. As she slips into and out of lucidity, she remembers her life, her three marriages, the high and low points, and in particular one weekend and one very special relationship.

“She woke and thought of what was left. She had always believed in the accepted wisdom that what was important would endure and in the end survive and what mattered would last and be recognized and saved. But she saw now that was not true.”

Susan Minot manages to convey Ann's state of mind convincingly and lyrically:

“She grew sensitive to the different shades of white on the ceiling. Her sense was not always right. The position of her arm had something to do with inviting people to dinner. She needed to

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move the pillow so a boat could dock there. She knew it wasn't logical and wondered if the drugs were obscuring things then it seemed as if the drugs were making it easier to read the true meaning.”

One tiny quibble is that the style is at times almost self-consciously, ostentatiously lyrical. Nevertheless, it never interferes with and almost always enhances the story, which is heartbreaking and beautiful. show less

between 2 and 2.5 stars. this was really hard for me at first. the writing is something stream of consciousness, with no punctuation and incomplete sentences all together, and going back and forth in time. all of those things conspired to make this quite tough for the first while. then when it started to make more sense - both what she was saying and the time period she was saying it in - it became much more readable, interesting, and beautiful (in parts). i'm not sure how much i believe in the idea of a two day affair overshadowing a life, but i think that's because i didn't like harris, because i didn't believe a word out of his mouth and couldn't see how ann could fall for him.

i didn't like all of this but some parts were so show more beautiful and surprising, and even in the hard to understand sentences i found some real gems (of language, construction, thought). the parts i liked were really lovely, and maybe the rest, which wasn't lovely, reflects how we handle being in the room/house with someone as we twiddle our thumbs and wait for them to die. i think i'll like this more and more the further i get from it and the more i think about it. it's definitely not one to read through quickly, with only some attention. show less

In 1955 Ann Grant attends the wedding of her best friend in Maine. During that fateful weekend she falls in love with a young doctor from Chicago. Fate works her magic and they consummate their love within hours of meeting each other. Forty-eight hours later the doctor’s fiancee arrives and tells her betrothed that she is carrying his child. He is torn between his love for Ann and his duty to his intended.

Now at the end of her life Ann Grant Lord lies in her bed. She is dying from cancer and each day the pain gets worse. Her children from her three marriages gather round and keep a death vigil while Ann mentally slips back in time to that weekend in 1955 when she fell in love. Her memories of that weekend become mixed with memories of show more her three marriages and with the hallucinations brought on by the heavy pain medicines she is taking.

This is an interesting book; highly imaginative in the way that it is written. The reader is taken on a roller-coaster ride through the mind of a dying woman who mentally reviews her life and still wonders what if she had married her young Chicago doctor. Throughout the narrative she is speaking to a male entity – it is never clear if that person is at her bedside in substance or only in spirit. We are led to believe that it is her young beau from 1955. She relives that fateful weekend in great detail although the memories are mixed with memories of other men (her three husbands) and other places she has been. Her children are the buzzards circling her deathbed. Nurse Brown is the voice of reason who writes her reports on her patient in a clinical manner that is much needed after the ramblings of the elderly Ann.

For me this book gave insight into the final days and hours of a person who has accepted her fate, knows she is about to die, and embraces the end. Everything else is secondary. A thought-provoking story that I finished in under a week. show less

Whatever We May Think of at the End of Life

This was truly a striking story. I didn’t like it much at first, but as I continued reading I saw there was something beautiful being realized. I had a good feeling after I finished reading it – I enjoyed the story and admire Susan Minot’s confidence to write a novel in this way – her loose, rambling style captured the subconscious mind.

It’s true that this is a sprawling story which was sometimes hard to follow but I think that often, that’s the way memories get tangled up at the end of life after an illness. It gives the reader an inside view of dying, which is very thought-provoking. I’m intrigued to see the movie and to see how their treatment affects the plot and storyline.

I found this novel quite remarkable as it depicts the thought process of Ann Lord. She is on her deathbed and slipping in and out of memories about events of her life. The main memory is of a brief love affair she had at 25, obviously an experience that has remianed with her through multiple husbands and 5 children. There is a stream of consciousness to the writing and the detail seems right on. The New York Times description below does a nice job of summarizing :

"July 1954. An island off the coast of Maine. Ann Grant—a 25-year-old New York career girl—is a bridesmaid at her best friend's lavish wedding. Also present is a man named Harris Arden, whom Ann has never met . . .

After three marriages and five children, Ann Lord lies in an show more upstairs bedroom of a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What comes to her, eclipsing a stream of doctor's visits and friends stopping by and grown children overheard whispering from the next room, is a rush of memories from a weekend 40 years ago in Maine, when she fell in love with a passion that even now throws a shadow onto the rest of her life. In Evening, Susan Minot gives us a novel of spellbinding power on the nature of memory and love."

What is not mentioned in the summary is the images she creates in her writing and the unique point of view, depicting a woman's thoughts as she struggles in and out of a drug induced coma. Highly recommended.

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Review: Evening by Susan Minot. 03/19/2018

I found the book a little confusing because of the time excerpts in the main characters memory. It was a sad story about an elderly women dying of cancer returning to her three marriages and events by memory while lying in bed dying. Reading about her moments in life she really never was happy after her first love; a Doctor from Chicago had a pregnant fiancé in the shadows. From that point on Ann married three times, had children in those marriages, and a home but lacked happiness.

Now, at sixty-five Ann Grant Lord laid in bed dying of cancer in her home surrounded by family members who was keeping a death vigil while she was mentally slips back to the weekend in 1955 when she fell in love. show more Ann’s memories interchange with her memories of her marriages and she was having hallucinations brought on by the heavy meds she was taking. The reader was led to believe Ann was wondering what her life would have been if she married her first love. Ann continues to ramble about her love and places she had been while the family sat around and the nurse was writing in her report in a clinical manner.

This was a story of a woman in her final hours recollecting a passionate affair that happen years ago. Ann as the character wasn’t charming, witty, she had an unlikable personality about her and I felt it made the story more confusing and densely sad. I assume I also felt the author create Ann as never learning how to be happy or didn’t give her the ability to be happy. It was just one of those stories that deeply saddens the reader as the story unfolds. show less

This is the story of a woman dying of cancer. It takes place mostly in her mind and memories, as she relives the weekend where she first fell in love, as well as other, more disjointed, recollections.

The book uses several devices to make the reader feel like s/he is in the woman's mind, including page-long stream of consciousness phrasings and quick jumps between pasts and the present. I appreciated what Minot was trying to do, but I found it difficult to read, both literally and figuratively.