The Discomfort of Evening

Uncomfortable, yes, but memorable. There's a dreaminess, yet also clarity, a lack of pomp and manipulation, to all the cruelties, obscenities, darknesses in this novel about a girl's world and family that crumbles after a brother's death. The children, who've grown up in church and around the animals at their cow farm, are left to themselves while the parents succumb to grief. They build their own rituals of violence and sexual awakening, to process and make sense of their brother's death. Everything slightly feels on the border to reality. The ending is rather gothic.

3.5