4.5 Stars rounded up
The seven stories in Eveningland are set in Alabama. Michael Knight clearly knows the ins and outs of his state, the way it draws people in. In the same way his stories draw the reader in. There is a loose connection, links, between the stories, reflections of lives lived along the Gulf Coast, told with the unmistakable essence of those who actually do live there.
Water and Oil – 5 Stars
A lovely and moving coming-of-age story about a young man, still a boy to his father - his concerns about pollution, and love.
An estuary acts as a natural filter. Pollutants are washed downstream on currents or inland on the tide and absorbed by marsh plants, canebrake and cattails sopping up impurities through their roots, leaving the water cleansed. On the surface, eventually, the world returns to normal. Only time reveals how it has been changed. So it was with Henry Bragg.
Smash and Grab – 4 Stars
A break-in, a thief, and an unexpected twist.
At the last house on the left, the one with no security system sign staked on the lawn, no dog in the backyard, Cashdollar elbowed out a pane of glass in the kitchen door and reached through to unlock it from the inside. Though he was ninetynine percent certain that the house was empty – he’d watched the owners leave himself – he paused a moment just across the threshold, listened carefully, heard nothing.
Our Lady of The Roses – 4.5 Stars
A young art teacher, working in a Catholic school, comes to terms with her boyfriend, her life, and what faith means to her.
Later, drinking Shiraz and watching TV at her boyfriend’s house, Hadley said, “If creativity comes from God then isn’t all art religious?
Jubilee – 4.5 Stars
A married couple reflectively prepares to host a party, a gala event celebrating the hesitant-to-celebrate husband’s 50th birthday.
His rush of nerves is passing. He just needs a drink, that’s all. On their wedding day, Dean convinced a bridesmaid to slip Kendra a note. It’s not too later. We can still elope. Kendra held onto it for years. She kept it in a box with tarnished hinges, along with other personal souvenirs—a matchbook, a mateless earring, a ticket stub.
Grand Old Party – 4 Stars
A man who is convinced that his wife has been unfaithful.
Use the barrel to ring the doorbell. This is what a man does when he’s been made a fool.
The King of Dauphin Island – 5 Stars
Marcus Weems, the sixth richest man in the state of Alabama, having lost his wife to cancer, now sets his sights on buying up all the property on Dauphin Island. His daughters seek to have him declared incompetent.
Like the long gone captains of the Confederacy, he stood watch at the edge of Dauphin Island, his old life just out of sight across the water. What he felt in those moments, pelicans skimming the chop, tankers lugging cargo to ports unknown, was not loneliness or loss, as you might expect, nor the weight of tragedy but its opposite, pure lightness, the hole left inside him by Suzette’s death as big and hollow as a zeppelin and just as buoyant, as if the shape of her absence might lift him up and carrying him away.
Landfill – 5 Stars
As a major hurricane hovers near, family members prepare for the eventual landfall. As they face their individual crises, memories emerge.
“Hello, Little Girl,” he said, and she said, “Hey, Big Man,” because that’s what they called each other, just the two of them.
He asked what she was doing and she told him and he took off his Panama hat and reached up into the tree and scooped the butterfly down to her. She liked that her grandfather was the last man in the world who wore a hat to work.
“I’ll bring it right back,” she said, already dashing for the house, holding the hat against her chest to keep the butterfly from escaping. “Let me put him in a jar.”
Pub Date: 7 Mar 2017
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Grove Atlantic / Atlantic Monthly Press
Cheri S, Reviewer
Katie H, Reviewer
