Dilly is lying in her hospital bed and her thoughts fade in and out through the years of her life, from her frightening but exciting journey from Ireland to America in the 1920's, to lost love and her struggle to exist and to have a meaningful relationship with her children. Her lost daugher, Eleanora has her own struggles (and many lovers!) and is on her way to her dying mothers side.
This is another book that I came across on our bookshelf at work, having never read Edna O'Brien before I was interested to find out what this Author was all about. I am absolutely divided in opinion about 'The Light of Evening'. On paper this has to be right up my alley, it is literary fiction and it is beautifully and absorbingly written. Each page is like a work of poetry dressed up as a work of fiction and it is quite imaginative and original. It could have been amazing if it had had more of an interesting story and a better ending and I found it to be frustratingly Arty Farty!
Too often I found myself in the past and then the present and then inside a classic literary work of fiction and then a dream and then back again. I like it when books have depth and dimensions but sometimes (as in this case) it actually got in the way of a good book. It has wetted my appetite to read more from this Author in the hope that her other titles are more readable. This book, from my point of view anyway, walked too close a tight rope between interesting and boring, frustrating and genius. It could have been genius and other readers may think it is. 3/5
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