Changing Seasons: 1954-1980 (Honest Women)

Evelyn Lanier's encounter with the clever and kind-hearted Greg Beall in a university laundromat sparks a long and unusual relationship that survives Evelyn's marriage to War Knight Read more Continue reading Read less FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nearly 200 years of Tennessee melodrama come to a climax in this fifth and final installment of Nelson's Honest Women saga (Uncertain April, etc.) , which takes Evelyn Lanier Knight from her college days through marriage, children, divorce and her early years as a professor of English. As the novel opens, Evelyn meets Greg Beall in the college laundromat. A mutual attraction develops at once, but Evelyn is engaged to marry Ward Knight, a straight-and-narrow biology student, and she refuses to be derailed by her heart. Although Ward and Evelyn's courtship fails to generate narrative sparks, the poignant story of the couple's marriage is told with quiet drama. Eventually, Evelyn comes to realize that she cared for Greg, who never reappears and whom she learns was killed in Vietnam, in a way she never will for Ward. Love has its way, though, and once her children are grown, romance visits Evelyn again-first through a disastrous affair with a young professor, then through a new appreciation of a close friend who has been waiting in the wings all along. Some of the storytelling is predictable, and some of it is dry, but when love and the chaos it brings enter, Nelson's plainspoken style and talent for the sly and penetrating insight create a generous exploration of love in its many guises.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Betty Palmer Nelson teaches English at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Tennessee. Read more Continue reading Read less