Book Review - Evening by Susan Minot

Date: July 17, 2007
Author: Susan Minot
Title: Evening
Rating: 8/10
How I got a hold of this book: I bought it at Kramerbooks for a book club I just joined.
Where I read this book: Metro, house, at breaks from a Photoshop class.

This book made me feel: Inspired, anxious about death.
Why I like it: A reader becomes immersed in the writing. Minot uses landmarks at the beginning and ending of the book to ground the reader. I wanted everything to turn out.
Why I don't like it: Not sure why Ann Lord had to remember Harris Arden. Was it because of death she was thinking of him as her last all encompassing thought.
The plot in five words: passion/choices/release/relationships/death

This book made me think of who: The movie is out so it made me think of the actors playing the characters.
Memorable character: So many - Buddy, Harris, even Maria. Each significant and developed in few scenes.
Memorable quote: His shoes had the laces tied because he kicked off his shoes and she thought how his fingers had tied those knots. A sister remembering a dead brother.

Person I met while reading this book: Classmates in a week-long photoshop class.
Something memorable that happened in my life during the time it took to read the book:
I attended a photoshop class.

If I could recommend this book to one person, it would be: Ann, a co-worker at Fremont Place Books in Seattle, Washington. I haven't seen her in about 4 years, but she was a voracious reader, and she could probably talk a lot about this book.

How this book changed my life: It's not the first book I've read detailing the last time period in a person's life dying of cancer, but it is the first one where it is written with such poetry. It's like I walk with the character to the door of death, and the character leaves me behind. An author must know the actions of death either by witnessing it a lot or by being incredibly intuitive, as how can we truly know the feelings. This author convinced me she knew the actions.

Would I read it again: Most likely

Notes: I loved the writing, the details of scenes, and details of characters that drew comprehensive composites, details of dialogue and feelings with enough left out for the reader to fill in the gap. I became invested in the story by filling in the gaps with my own feelings.