When Eve returns home to sit shiva for her sister, a secret leads her to question what she thought she knew about their respective places in the family in this character-driven domestic drama. Tam was the successful sister; she was a well-known television journalist, married and the mother of two children before she died in her 40s. Eve, conversely, has a dissertation on a niche subject she still has not finished and a long-term relationship that she has kept so determinedly casual that she doesn't consider meeting at the airport, let alone marriage and children. Since they were teens, the one area where both agreed Eve was ahead was as the "sexy" sister. After Tam's funeral, Eve is given a note from her sister revealing something that a lover said to her--something that Eve knows couldn't have been said by Tam's husband.
Evening by Nessa Rapoport (Preparing for Sabbath) is an introspective drama about a woman reconsidering her family mythology. Eve contemplates the mysterious identity of Tam's lover, and who Eve is if Tam was not the devoted wife. And as she spends time with her divorced parents and the rest of her family, Eve also reexamines her conception of her parents' relationship and unearths the secrets of her grandmother's generation. Written in clear and thoughtful prose, Evening will keep readers entranced with the bonds and the competitions between sisters and the questions of what remains when loved ones are gone. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library