3.0
The Evening Road
ByPublisher Description
Two women, two secrets: one desperate and extraordinary day. In the high heat of an Indiana summer, news spreads fast. When Marvel, the local county seat, plans to lynch three young black men, word travels faster. It is August, 1930, the height of the Jim Crow era, and the prospect of the spectacle sends shockwaves rumbling through farm country as far as a day's wagon-ride away.
Ottie Lee Henshaw, a fiery small-town beauty, sets out with her lecherous boss and brooding husband to join in whatever fun there is to be had. At the opposite end of the road to Marvel, Calla Destry, a young African-American woman determined to escape the violence, leaves home to find the lover who has promised her a new life.
As the countryside explodes in frenzied revelry, the road is no place for either. It is populated by wild-eyed demagogues, marauding vigilantes, possessed bloodhounds, and even by the Ku Klux Klan itself. Reminiscent of the works of Louise Erdrich, Edward P. Jones, and Marilynne Robinson, The Evening Road is the story of two remarkable woman on the move through an America riven by fear and hatred, and eager to flee the secrets they have left behind.
Ottie Lee Henshaw, a fiery small-town beauty, sets out with her lecherous boss and brooding husband to join in whatever fun there is to be had. At the opposite end of the road to Marvel, Calla Destry, a young African-American woman determined to escape the violence, leaves home to find the lover who has promised her a new life.
As the countryside explodes in frenzied revelry, the road is no place for either. It is populated by wild-eyed demagogues, marauding vigilantes, possessed bloodhounds, and even by the Ku Klux Klan itself. Reminiscent of the works of Louise Erdrich, Edward P. Jones, and Marilynne Robinson, The Evening Road is the story of two remarkable woman on the move through an America riven by fear and hatred, and eager to flee the secrets they have left behind.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities20 Reviews
3.0
Kim
Created 7 months agoShare
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EuansTrue
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Markazaki
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Cristen
Created over 1 year agoShare
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“This book surprised me. I’ll admit it was a slow burn at first and it was pushing me away. But I’m always game to keep reading so that I can give a fair review. It finally pulled me in. And it’s astounding how some of the beliefs in this book are still thrown around today. How there are good people living in fear because of others’ beliefs and judgments about something they cannot change, their skin color. This book is important; it is a testament to recognizing how much we have grown, but not resting and continuing in a path of growth, acceptance, and supporting our fellow man. This book reminded me a lot of The Vanishing Half but in an earlier time frame. I’m glad this book found me and feel it was a significant story.”
Jody JP
Created almost 2 years agoShare
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“2.5, but not enough to round up to a 3
The story centers around the evening of August 7, 1930 in Marion, Indiana where two African American men were lynched. The novel tries to recreate the chaos that would reverberate and penetrate into the surrounding communities from such an atrocity, but somehow misses.
After reading Laird Hunt’s “Zorrie,” I immediately went to the library to check out another of his books. Sadly, disappointed in “The Evening Road.””
About Laird Hunt
Laird Hunt is the author of eight novels, a collection of stories, and two book-length translations from the French. A 2024 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction, he is also the winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction, the Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine, the Bridge Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pen/Faulkner and the Prix Femina Étranger. Hunt’s reviews and essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and many others. He teaches in the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University and lives in Providence.
Other books by Laird Hunt
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