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Stories
by Michael Knight
Book Reviewed by:These stories, told with economy and precision, infused with humor and pathos, excavate brilliantly the latent desires and motivations that drive life forward.
Long considered a master of the form and an essential voice in American fiction, Michael Knight's stories have been lauded by writers such Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Gilbert, Barry Hannah, and Richard Bausch. Now, with Eveningland he returns to the form that launched his career, delivering an arresting collection of interlinked stories set among the "right kind of Mobile family" in the years preceding a devastating hurricane.
Grappling with dramas both epic and personal, from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the "unspeakable misgivings of contentment," Eveningland captures with crystalline poeticism and perfect authenticity of place the ways in which ordinary life astounds us with its complexity. A teenaged girl with a taste for violence holds a burglar hostage in her house on New Year's Eve; a middle aged couple examines the intricacies of their marriage as they prepare to throw a party; and a real estate mogul in the throes of grief buys up all the property on an island only to be accused of madness by his daughters.
The first thing you notice about Michael Knight's Alabama-based Eveningland is his lovingly gentle writing style that is lyrical without being flowery. Knight imbues the stories within this collection with an attention to landscape and atmosphere that lend them a level of affection, thereby implying his personal relationship with their location. However, I was also struck by how he never allows place to overshadow the emotional connection to his characters. In fact, for the most part, these stories are universal enough that they could be located anywhere. Having never been to Alabama, I'm not completely sure if this is wholly positive...continued
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(Reviewed by Davida Chazan).
Some of the action in Michael Knight's story "Our Lady of the Roses" takes place during Mardi Gras. The protagonist notes that the first celebration was in Mobile and not in New Orleans. That piqued my curiosity and I decided to do some research into this most colorful holiday.
The first thing I found was that, like many of our modern religious traditions, Mardi Gras (which translates to mean "Fat Tuesday") has its origins in paganism, in this case it is linked to spring and fertility. Apparently it was the Roman Catholics who adapted this custom (also known as Carnival, from the Latin carnis, which means flesh/meat and levare which means to leave off) to do something fun - a last fling, if you will - just prior to the 40 days of Lent ...
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If you liked Eveningland, try these:
by Diane Williams
Published 2022
Diane Williams, an American master of the short story who will "rewire your brain" (NPR), is back with a collection in which she once again expands the possibilities of fiction.
by James McBride
Published 2018
Exciting new fiction from James McBride, the first since his National Book Award–winning novel The Good Lord Bird.
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Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd rather have been talking
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Adam Johnson
This collection of linked stories is as potent as any novel I have read in a long, long time.
