{"product_id":"the-evening-shades-isbn-9781685891732","title":"The Evening Shades","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe highly anticipated follow-up to Pulitzer Prize finalist \u003ci\u003eThe Bright Forever, The Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of two lonely people in a small Midwestern town and the dark secrets tormenting them . . .\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne afternoon in the autumn of 1972, a lonely widow in Mt. Gilead, Illinois, makes the impromptu decision to rent out a room in her house to a stranger who has come to town. It is risky—she doesn’t know anything about him. But Edith Green can no longer bear a life lived alone. And Henry Dees is haunted by the past he carries with him from another small town, particularly by the death of a little girl that some people think was his fault.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd slowly, Henry and Edith's suspenseful dance between secrets and trust leads them to start revealing things to each other — and themselves ...\"Martin’s slow-burn mystery runs on reflective character work and lucid prose, and he keeps the reader guessing right up to the end. This is one to savor.\"\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Unsettling yet compelling, the story is driven by themes of gossip, shame, and loneliness. . . engrossing reading experience for fans of noir literary mysteries.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Booklist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The heartbreak of loss and the power of love intertwine in \u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e, Lee Martin's suspenseful follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize finalist, \u003ci\u003eThe Bright Forever\u003c\/i\u003e.  . . . tightly, tersely crafted novel. . .\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Shelf Awareness\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Lee Martin’s small-town novel is a stunner. . . the novel proceeds with glass-like smoothness but it’s actually trickier than it seems. . . filled with beautiful, exclamation-worthy language. . .\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a gentle, compassionate book that is ruthless in its examination of its characters' motives.\"\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Minnesota Star-Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When the worst has happened and we did nothing to stop it, who are we now? Do we still have a right to happiness? Are we worthy any longer of being loved and loving in return? These are just some of the deeply human questions raised by this mesmerizing novel by one of our country’s finest novelists. Part crime novel, part love story, Lee Martin’s prose is spare yet wonderfully evocative, rendering once again the often forgotten voices of the heartland. But what I admire most about \u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e is its refusal to turn away from darkness, an unflinching gaze that opens into hard-earned grace and hope. This is a superb American novel.” \u003cb\u003e—Andre Dubus III, author of \u003ci\u003eHouse of Sand and Fog\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Lee Martin is a brilliant chronicler of small-town life, and in \u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e, set in 1972, he vividly portrays two midwestern communities in the aftermath of a child’s mysterious murder. Nevertheless, Martin’s ultimate concerns are beyond time and place as he delves into the deepest, and often most unsettling, mysteries of all—those of the human heart.” \u003cb\u003e—Ron Rash, author of \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling novel, \u003ci\u003eSerena\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Who would guess that a cowardly math teacher, fleeing from dubious crimes, and a long time spinster, guilty of fraudulent promises to her library, would fall truly in love? Certainly not their neighbours in Mt. Gilead, nor this reader. \u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e is gorgeously written and suspenseful in the best way. Martin makes us care deeply about his vivid characters. An absorbing novel from a writer at the height of his powers.” \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eMargot Livesey, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Road from Belhaven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Lee Martin deftly eases us into the minds of two Midwestern towns and several of their most isolated residents. This quiet but intense battle between the instinct for self-preservation and a desperate hunger for connection is both unsettling and familiar.\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eJohn Sayles, filmmaker and author of \u003ci\u003eJamie MacGillivray\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There is not another American writer living today who better understands our Midwest and the people who live there than Lee Martin. In \u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e, Martin explores grief and betrayal, love and hope, loneliness and redemption in small midwestern towns in 1972 when two broken people come together in surprising ways. I simply love this book.\"\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eAnn Hood, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Stolen Child\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Taking place in the aftermath of a horrific crime in 1970's small-town America, Lee Martin's \u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades\u003c\/i\u003e is an eloquent and quietly moving novel; and the way he is able to enter so completely into the lives of his characters is absolutely astonishing.\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eDonald Ray Pollock, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Devil All the Time\u003c\/i\u003e \u0026amp; \u003ci\u003eThe Heavenly Table\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Evening Shades \u003c\/i\u003ebegins with the death of a young girl, in a town where many people have a piece of the puzzle but don't know how to share their knowledge with each other. People try to move on with their lives, but the death causes tension that creates new problems that threaten the entire sense of community that people have counted on. How can a town carry grief sorrow without losing its sense of community? Lee Martin has written another compelling story that is both a page turner and full of wisdom.\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eAlice Elliot Dark, author of \u003ci\u003eFellowship Point\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eLee Martin is the author of five novels, including \u003ci\u003eThe Bright Forever\u003c\/i\u003e, a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including\u003ci\u003e Harper’s, Ms Magazine, The Georgia Review, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The Kenyon Review, \u003c\/i\u003eand his work has been anthologized in \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Essays\u003c\/i\u003e, and\u003ci\u003e The Best American Mystery Stories\u003c\/i\u003e. His books have been widely translated, and won numerous awards, including a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers award. He teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University.MT. GILEAD, ILLINOIS \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe came in September just as autumn was beginning in earnest. The nights were cold and some mornings frost slicked the grass and the rooftops. The people of Mt. Gilead went about their business under cloudless skies—all that blue above them—and they did their best not to think of the winter days to come. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sun set a tad sooner each evening, and in the waning light farmers, busy cutting their soybeans, hauled their grain to the elevator and then stopped at Griff’s Barber Shop for a quick cut, or the Town Talk Cafe for a bite of supper. The dusk was full of dust and chaff, and as the dark fell, the farmers in line at the elevator’s scales stood in the swath of their trucks’ head- lights and ribbed one another and talked big to keep themselves from having to admit the truth—Mt. Gilead was a small town that was going nowhere fast. It was 1972, and the garment fac- tory had gone out and the shoe factory soon followed. No one wanted to think about the prospect of businesses shutting their doors, young people moving away, abandoned houses falling in on themselves—so folks did their best to deny that Mt. Gilead was on a downward slide. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut now here was this stranger, and though no one knew who he was, or where he’d come from, or what he might be carrying with him, they felt a shimmer of something brighter, some spark of his world rubbing up against theirs, and they waited to see what might come of that marriage. Maybe, just maybe, his coming was a sign that Mt. Gilead’s luck was about to change. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe drove a ’65 Mercury Comet, powder blue, and even though it was seven years old, it looked as new as it must have the day he drove it off the dealer’s lot. Here was a man who knew how to take care. He eased that Comet up to the pump at Hutch’s Sunoco and took his time getting out. He was a man in his middle years. A man who wore khaki slacks that were sharply creased, a poplin jacket, zipped to his throat, and ox- fords that had been freshly shined. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hi-Test, please,” he said to Hutch’s pump jockey, Bertie Squiggs. “Fill it.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBertie pushed his St. Louis Cardinals cap back on his head and peered out from beneath its brim, studying the stranger for just a moment before pointing his finger at him and saying with a grin, “You got it, Mister. You’re the boss.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile Bertie pumped the gas, the stranger popped the hood and checked his oil. Bertie was a good-hearted man who never intended to cause anyone trouble, but he was also a man who sometimes questioned the worth of his life. Never married, he lived in the Balm of Gilead mobile home park west of town and did his best to clean the oil and grease from the creases in his knuckles before attending services at the Central Christian Church. He’d been a bachelor a good long while, and he was facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life alone. Still he put on a good face. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I could do that for you,” he said to the stranger, eager to please. “It’s sorta my job, you know.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It’s no trouble.” The stranger grabbed a blue paper towel from the dispenser Hutch kept above the tub of windshield cleaning fluid and the squeegee, and he held the dipstick against it and took his time registering the oil’s level. Then he wiped the dipstick clean and eased it back in place. He let the hood down easy, making sure it latched. He squinted at the price on the pump. Then he fished a billfold from his hip pocket, fingered out a few bills, and gave them to Bertie. “No trouble at all,” the stranger said. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That do it for ya?” Bertie asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, the stranger said, that would indeed do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Where ya headed anyway?” Bertie put his hands on his hips and gave the stranger a big smile. “Not many out-of-town- ers find us here so far off the big road.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is Mt. Gilead, isn’t it?” the stranger asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s right, friend,” said Bertie. “Population 2,314.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, friend.” The stranger stressed the word. Then he clapped Bertie on the shoulder. “I’m exactly where I thought I was, and that’s never a bad thing, far as I can tell.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEdith Green had just stopped her Lincoln Continental, the big boat of a car her father had left her when he died, on the other side of the pump, and when she opened her door, a breeze came up. It rattled the leaves on the giant oak across the street. It set the yellow and blue pennants strung from the roof over the pumps to the garage to whipping and snapping, and it caught Edith’s head scarf—quite a nice scarf it was, a green silk scarf with pink and blue roses on it, the scarf her father had given her for Christmas, that last Christmas before his heart seized and he left her. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe scarf lifted on the breeze, fluttering past the stranger, who, at the last instant, reached up his hand and plucked it out of the air. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat scarf was the most elegant item of clothing Edith owned. For the most part, she wore men’s twill trousers and flannel shirts and barn coats. Never what anyone would con- sider a looker, she loved that silk scarf and the way it made her feel almost pretty when she wore it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe stranger carried it to her. “I believe this is yours,” he said. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBertie watched her take the scarf. She balled it up in her hand and pressed it to her chest. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you around here,” she said to the stranger. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No, ma’am. I’ve never been here before, but I’m thinking I just might stay.” He gave her a little bow. “My name is Henry Dees.”","brand":"Melville House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305407598821,"sku":"NP9781685891732","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781685891732.jpg?v=1767739233","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-evening-shades-isbn-9781685891732","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}