Evensong, Kate Southwood
Evensong, Kate Southwood
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Evensong
A Novel

Author: Kate Southwood

Narrator: Suzanne Toren

Unabridged: 8 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/16/2017

Synopsis

Margaret Maguire, a widow and grandmother home from the hospital in time for Christmas, is no longer able to ignore the consequences of having married an imperious and arrogant man. Despite her efforts to be a good wife and mother in small-town Iowa, her adult children are now strangers to one another, past hope of reconciliation. Margaret’s granddaughter could be the one to break the cycle, but she can’t do it without Margaret’s help. It’s time to take stock, to examine the past—even time for Margaret to call herself to account.By turns tenacious and tender, contrary and wry, Margaret examines her life’s tragedies and joys, motivations and choices, coming to view herself and the past with compassion, if not entirely with forgiveness. Beautifully rendered and poignantly told, Evensong is a realistic portrait of a woman searching for tranquility at the end of her days.

About Kate Southwood

Kate Southwood is the author of Falling to Earth. Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Huffington Post, among others. She lives in Oslo, Norway.

About Suzanne Toren

Suzanne Toren, award-winning narrator, has over thirty years of experience in narration. She was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She has won the American Foundation for the Blind’s Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year, AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture, and she is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. She performs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and has appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill

Kate Southwood’s first book, Falling to Earth, was replete with haunting universal forces: how do we comprehend our own destiny in the face of a natural disaster – an earthquake – that is, by its very nature, unfair? In Evensong, the author’s theme is more insular and specific: how does one woman, Ma......more

Goodreads review by Jill

Evensong is a quietly moving book about family life and love. There is not much happening outwardly in the book as far as plot, but rather it is all about what is happening internally and between the words that are spoken and the looks that are exchanged. I enjoyed reading it slowly, and I think the......more

Goodreads review by Mary

Having absolutely loved Kate Southwood's first novel, "Falling to Earth", a memorable and beautifully rendered story of devastation, loss and envy, I was primed to love her latest, "Evensong", which again explores the dense psychology of family and society in a small Midwestern town. I was not disap......more

Quotes

“In its gentle but insistent urge toward knowledge, Evensong shines a light into the dark.” Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point

“Absolutely gorgeous…Beautifully constructed.” New York Times on Falling to Earth

“Evensong is the story of a woman at the end of her life, taking a clear-eyed look at it…Kate Southwood performs a series of literary miracles. For this is a novel that both expands and compresses a life, that lays bare and embellishes it…an inspiring work of art. Truly, this is literature at its best.” Elizabeth Berg, author of The Dream Lover

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