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Title: Lyrical prose, shallow characters, ultimately disappointing
Review: "Evening" was tantalizing and sensual, but ultimately disappointing. Susan Minot's lyrical style seems to capture how I would imagine the experience of dying slowly. Yet the plot and characters were too thin for the novel to take hold. The minor characters--Ann's children and her friends of 40 years ago--were cardboard and interchangeable. In fact, I felt no sorrow when Ann died, because she was shallow, caring little for her children, untouched by the experience of motherhood, and having no other accomplishments to speak of. Harris, the love of her life with nothing more than good looks to offer, seems undeserving of Ann's extraordinary deathbed passion.
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