Synopses & Reviews
“
The Evening Chorus serenades people brutally marked by war, yet enduring to live — and relish — the tiny pleasures of another day. With her trademark prose — exquisitely limpid — Humphreys convinces us of the birdlike strength of the powerless.” — Emma Donoghue
Downed during his first mission, James Hunter is taken captive as a German POW. To bide the time, he studies a nest of redstarts at the edge of camp. Some prisoners plot escape; some are shot. And then, one day, James is called to the Kommandant’s office.
Meanwhile, back home, James’s new wife, Rose, is on her own, free in a way she has never known. Then, James’s sister, Enid, loses everything during the Blitz and must seek shelter with Rose. In a cottage near Ashdown forest, the two women jealously guard secrets, but form a surprising friendship. Each of these characters will find unexpected freedom amid war’s privations and discover confinements that come with peace. The Evening Chorus is a beautiful, astonishing examination of love, loss, escape, and the ways in which the intrusions of the natural world can save us.
“The Evening Chorus sparkles.” —Jo Baker
“A poised, lyrical novel about the griefs of war, written with poetic intensity of observation.” —Helen Dunmore
“This riveting novel is a song. Listen.” —Richard Bausch
www.hhumphreys.com
Review
“Bewitching.” —
Boston Globe
Review
"The Evening Chorus deserves a special place on your reading list this winter."
—Alan Cheuse, NPR All Things Considered
“Humphrey’s prose is spare, concrete, sculpted . . . . deeply rooted in the rhythms and imagery of nature. . . . Humphreys sees nature as something consoling, even redemptive.”
—The New York Times Book Review
"Scintillating...What Humphreys does so well, in beautiful, precise prose, is convey the shock of that violence, how it rends the everyday. I am very glad to have spent some of my moments on earth reading The Evening Chorus. I reached the end with a sense of wonder that so much life and pain and beauty could be contained in so few pages."
—The Boston Globe
"Humphreys (Nocturne, 2013, etc.) offers a heartbreaking yet redemptive story about loss and survival...Humphreys deserves more recognition for the emotional intensity and evocative lyricism of her seemingly straightforward prose and for her ability to quietly squirrel her way into the reader’s heart."
—Kirkus, starred review
"Like birds thrown off course by severe storms, James, Rose, and Enid all emerge from the war in places far different from where they started. Inspired by the resiliency of the natural world, Humphreys (Coventry, 2009) creates a narrative arc that is compact and sinewy, yet from her spare prose and refined imagery springs an arresting novel of regret, contrition, and redemption that glimmers with transcendent moments of hope and valor. An ingeniously elegant and instinctively restrained tale about the durability of the human spirit."
—Booklist, starred review
“The Evening Chorus is a quietly commanding narrative of nature’s constancy in a time of unspeakable human ruin…. In characteristically effortless prose, Humphreys relates a familiar tale of love and loss in war, but reveals a valuable truth: that nature in its timeless wisdom has the ability to remind humans, in the darkest of days, of their humanity.”
—Quill & Quire
"A lyrical novel about loss, love and the natural world."
—Country Life
"Award winning Canadian author Helen Humphreys' latest novel is a beautifully written exploration of the impact of war and peace on her four central characters...They all discover that, paradoxically, war brings unexpected freedom, which peace will eventually destroy."
—The Syndey Morning Herald
"Humphreys' prose is nuanced and deceptively plainspoken; under its simplicity lies profound observation of human emotion."
—Cleveland.com
"Poignantly explores the sorrows of war and consolations of nature … A story of heartbreak and hope, it unfolds against a mesmerizingly described natural world."
—Daily Mail
"Absorbing, richly characterized, and marked by smart, delightful twists and turns, the novel’s fruitful visitation of war and its aftermath never fails to captivate. If there is such a thing as a cultural vocabulary of war, Humphreys adds welcome new words to it...In highlighting the wondrous (if at times vexing) unknowability of our lives — that a sudden impulsive idea, or a decision to turn left instead of right, can usher in unforeseeable consequences — The Evening Chorus artfully imagines how that might play out for one quartet. And with her usual faultless eloquence, Helen Humphreys makes our witnessing of their causes and effects memorably instructive."
—National Post
"The Evening Chorus serenades people brutally marked by war, yet enduring to live - and relish - the tiny pleasures of another day. With her trademark prose - exquisitely limpid - Humphreys convinces us of the birdlike strength of the powerless."
—Emma Donoghue, author of Room and many others
“In The Evening Chorus the interventions of war, and the resulting human tragedies, play out against a natural world at once remote, alien and ultimately redemptive. The novel has a crystalline quality about it—it's clear and complex and self-contained. It sparkles.”
—Jo Baker, author of Longbourn and others
“The Evening Chorus is a poised, lyrical novel about the griefs of war, written with poetic intensity of observation. It resonates afterwards. I read it with pleasure.”
—Helen Dunmore, author of The Siege and A Spell of Winter, among others
“If there's a writer of English prose with a more profound connection to the natural world and to the subtleties of human love and sorrow than Helen Humphreys, I don't know who it is. The Evening Chorus is rich with her particular gift for symphonic cadences and beautiful imagery that moves a story forward with the momentum of a big train gathering speed. This riveting novel is a song. Listen.”
—Richard Bausch, author of The Last Good Time, the forthcoming Before, During, After and others
“I love this book. It is so beautifully written. So sad and full of loss and so hopeful at the same time. I truly think that we all do not recognize those moments, or truly appreciate them, when they are happening, but only after many years can we look back and realize they were special, or even amazing. Bright spots in a long journey through life that is mostly made up of the everyday dull and even dreary. [There are] scenes that strike blows to your heart and make you realize the ultimate value of pain is that you are alive to experience it.”
—Micheal Fraser, Joseph-Beth Booksellers
"Quietly profound and gorgeously written, The Evening Chorus is among the most moving new novels I've read in years."—Garth Greenwell, Towleroad.com
"Hauntingly beautiful, and highly thought provoking...Beautiful on every page."
—History and Women
"Humphreys is a masterful writer; her prose is quiet and simple yet devastating and perfect."
—BookNAround
"Humphreys is an extraordinary prose stylist...I marveled at every sentence of The Evening Chorus."
—Lambda Literary
"This is such a beautiful story and elegantly told."
—A Work in Progress
Synopsis
A novel of family intrigue from aone of the most accomplished writers of fiction of our daya (The Washington Post)
All Alison ever wanted was a blissful childhood for her six children, with summers at the beach and birthday parties on the lawn at their family home. Together with Ingrid, the family au pair, she has worked hard to create a real aold-fashioned family life.a But beneath its postcard sheen, the picture is clouded by a distant father, Alisonas inexplicable emotional outbursts, and long-repressed secrets that no one dares mention. For years, Alisonas adult children have protected her illusion of domestic perfectionabut as each child confronts the effects of past choices on their current adult lives, it becomes evident that each must face the truth.
Penelope Livelyas novels of history, memory, and character have earned her a loyal readership. Like Ian McEwanas Atonement, this novel is a measured, thoughtful look at how events of the past, both small and large, seen and unseen, deeply inform character and the present. Quietly provocative and disturbing, Family Album is a highly nuanced work that showcases a master of her craft.
Synopsis
"In this haunting new novel, the act of forgetting is as strange and interesting as the power of remembering." The New York Times Book Review
Look out for Penelope Lively s new book, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories.
Penelope Lively is renowned for her signature combination of silken storytelling and nuanced human insights. In Family Album, lively masterfully peels back one family's perfect facade to reveal the unsettling truths.
All Alison ever wanted was to provide her six children with a blissful childhood. Its creation, however, became an obsession that involved Ingrid, the family au pair. As adults, Paul, Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger, and Clare return to their family home and as mysteries begin to unravel, each must confront how the consequences of long-held secrets have shaped their lives."
Synopsis
"[In this] haunting new novel, the act of forgetting is as strange and interesting as the power of remembering." -The New York Times Book Review
Penelope Lively is renowned for her signature combination of silken storytelling and nuanced human insights. In Family Album, lively masterfully peels back one family's perfect façade to reveal the unsettling truths.
All Alison ever wanted was to provide her six children with a blissful childhood. Its creation, however, became an obsession that involved Ingrid, the family au pair. As adults, Paul, Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger, and Clare return to their family home and as mysteries begin to unravel, each must confront how the consequences of long-held secrets have shaped their lives.
Synopsis
A novel of family intrigue from one of the most accomplished writers of fiction ("The Washington Post"), "Family Album" offers a measured, thoughtful look at how events of the past, both small and large, deeply inform the present.
Synopsis
Fitzgerald's novel of pre-revolutionary Moscow, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Featuring an introduction by Andrew Miller.
Synopsis
Short-listed for the Booker Prize “Fitzgerald was the author of several slim, perfect novels. The Blue Flower and The Beginning of Spring both had me abuzz for days the first time I read them. She was curiously perfect.”— Teju Cole, author of Open City
“Writing so precise and lilting it can make you shiver.” — Los Angeles Times
March 1913. Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring. English painter Frank Reid returns from work one night to find that his wife has gone away; no one knows where or why, or whether she’ll ever come back. All Frank knows for sure is that he is now alone and must find someone to care for his three young children.
Into Frank’s life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a quiet, calming beauty from the country, untroubled to the point of seeming simple. But is she? And why has Frank’s bookkeeper, Selwyn Crane, gone to such lengths to bring these two together?
This new edition features an introduction by Andrew Miller, author of Pure, along with new cover art.
Synopsis
A novel following James, a pilot struggling to survive in a German POW camp, his young war-bride, Rose, back in England trying to make sense of her life, and his sister, whose own story is also rewritten by the tragedies of WWII
Synopsis
Shot down on his first mission, James is taken to a German POW camp. To bide the time, he studies a family of birds. Some prisoners have been taken out of the camp and shot; some plot escape. And then, one day, the Kommandant invites him for a drive.
With James away, his young war bride Rose is free in a way she has never known — working as an air raid warden, roaming the countryside with only her dog as company. Until a furloughed soldier brings new choices.
And then Jamess sister, Enid, is bombed out of London. She loses her home and her lover in one tragic, impersonal act of war. Her only refuge is her brothers — Roses — home. Each is protective of her secrets, but the two form a surprising friendship.
Each of these characters will find liberty amid wars privations and discover confinements that come with peace. From a writer of “delicate and incandescent” (San Francisco Chronicle) prose, The Evening Chorus offers a beautiful, spare examination of the natural world and the human heart.
Synopsis
Amid the chaos of World War II, three people find unexpected freedom through their connection to the natural world.
About the Author
PENELOPE FITZGERALD wrote many books small in size but enormous in popular and critical acclaim over the past two decades. Over 300,000 copies of her novels are in print, and profiles of her life appeared in both The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. In 1979, her novel Offshore won Britain's Booker Prize, and in 1998 she won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for The Blue Flower. Though Fitzgerald embarked on her literary career when she was in her 60's, her career was praised as "the best argument.. for a publishing debut made late in life" (New York Times Book Review). She told the New York Times Magazine, "In all that time, I could have written books and I didn’t. I think you can write at any time of your life." Dinitia Smith, in her New York Times Obituary of May 3, 2000, quoted Penelope Fitzgerald from 1998 as saying, "I have remained true to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?"ANDREW MILLER's first novel, Ingenious Pain, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the International IMPAC Award. He was short-listed for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award for his novel Oxygen. He lives in Brighton, England.