After three marriages, Ann Lord is the mother of five children. She is well-off, living in Cambridge, Mass., and Connecticut. She is a strong-willed, if reticent, woman. She also has cancer and is dying.
As she remembers parts of her life, we float back in time with her to her most definitive adult experience. July 1954 was a pivotal month in her self-actualization and, from that point, Minot takes us through a swirl of Ann’s recollections. Some are coherent, some less so, but none are uninteresting.
Having lost a loved one to cancer as, sadly, many of us have, it is bittersweet to read “Evening.” The stories are there, the characters are strong, but the gift of Minot’s story is to be present in Ann’s head as she succumbs. We know how she feels, what she is thinking, and hearing, and seeing. This story is constructed entirely in her own mind and it is a rare privilege to be there.
As Ann recalls her life in bits and pieces, we feel her regret for a specific relationship that really never was. Most of Ann’s adult loves seem to be compromised by this one encounter and Ann never admits this to anyone but herself, and, by extension, to us. In July of 1954, Ann is 25. She attends the wedding of her good friend on an island in Maine and meets a man against whom all others will be judged unfavorably ever after.
Whether he is ultimately deserving is immaterial. We behold the weekend in all its extravagant pulchritude and ultimate horror through Ann. We are there with that intangible feel of boundless summer evenings and mercurial romance. We remember that rush of joy that holds you in the pit of your stomach when anticipation equals reality.
As she falls in love, we meet the Ann with whom we will share her final days.
As Ann’s kaleidoscope of memories crashes around her, we piece together her life. Progressing from this pivotal weekend, we envisage the personal walls she assembles and the family who will try to sidestep them. We meet her husbands and her children with each. We see the friendships she maintains and the pains she keeps silent, but there is little she remembers as abundantly as this first weekend.
Nothing else is spelled out as distinctly … and the story is better for it.We are a little lost in the recesses of her mind, as indeed, is she – but her final freedom is ours as well.
Nothing else is spelled out as distinctly … and the story is better for it.We are a little lost in the recesses of her mind, as indeed, is she – but her final freedom is ours as well.