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Book Review of Evenings at Five

Evenings at Five
Evenings at Five
Author: Gail Godwin
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Substores
Book Type: Hardcover
reviewed on + 1438 more book reviews


A story about a couple whose favorite time was their cocktail hour together at five p.m. From this poin the story moves one coping with grief when one dies. It's a happy tale until this event that turns sad. She revels in the memories about what they shared together, feels guilt about their disagreements and that she wasn't by his side when he left this earth. Yes, it's hard for the the one left behind who must find a way to develop a new life.

Well written, it's a realistic tale about the end of life, how retirement develops, learning to cope with the frailities of later life and finally, living with declining health that ends in death. Realistic, this is little look provides much food for thought.

Robert Louis Stevenson sums it best: The changes wrought by death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's experience, not a received condition, and has no parallel on earth. ("Aes Triplex)