Light of Evening（ISBN=）

　　In this contemporary story with universal resonance, Edna
O’Brien delves deep into the intense relationship that exists
between a mother and daughter who long for closeness yet remain
eternally at odds. From her hospital bed in Dublin, the ailing
Dilly Macready eagerly awaits a visit from her long-estranged
daughter, Eleanora. Years before, Eleanora fled Ireland for London
when her sensuous first novel caused a local scandal. Eleanora’s
peripatetic life since then has brought international fame but
personal heartbreak in her failed quest for love. Always, her
mother beseeches her to return home, sending letters that are
priceless in their mix of love, guilt, and recrimination. For all
her disapproval, Dilly herself knows something of Eleanora’s need
for freedom: as a young woman in the 1920s, Dilly left Ireland for
a new life in New York City. O’Brien’s marvelous cinematic portrait
of New York in that era is a tour-de-force, filled with the clang
and clatter of the city, the camaraderie of the working girls
against their callous employers, and their fierce competition over
handsome young men. But a lover’s betrayal sent Dilly reeling back
to Ireland to raise a family on a lovely old farm named Rusheen. It
is Rusheen that still holds mother and daughter together. Yet
Eleanora’s visit to her mother’s sickbed does not prove to be the
glad reunion that Dilly prayed for. And in her hasty departure,
Eleanora leaves behind a secret journal of their stormy
relationship — a revelation that brings the novel to a shocking
close. Brimming with the lyricism and earthy insight that are the
hallmarks of Edna O’Brien’s acclaimed fiction, The Light of Evening
is a novel of dreams and attachments, lamentations and betrayals.
At its core is the realization that the bond between mother and
child is unbreakable, stronger even than death.

　　Edna O’Brien is the author of 24 books. She was the winner of
the 1993 Writers’ Guild Prize for Fiction. In 2001 her novel, In
the Forest – about a brutal murder on the west coast – caused a
furore throughout Ireland and was the subject of a BBC Omnibus
film.