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Epicurus.com - In The Gloaming: Stories
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List Price: $13.00
Our Price: $6.69
Your Save: $ 6.31 ( 49% )
Availability: N/A
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2001-01-16
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Editorial Reviews:
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The gloaming is the hour when dawn or dusk works its spell, making all the world as purple as the Scottish highlands on a summer night. In Alice Elliott Dark's heart-catching title story, a loving mother shares this favorite time of day with her dying son, all the while realizing that for him it is already dark. In the Gloaming is populated by characters yearning for twilight moments, existing as they do in indeterminate emotional states not easily defined. Their hearts twist, making our own rush toward them. In "The Secret Spot," Helen dodges the knife of confession during a chance encounter with an old rival. In "Maniacs," two sisters unexpectedly see a man they have both loved. In "Dreadful Language," Frannie follows in her mother's footsteps by marrying for security rather than love. In austerely beautiful prose, Dark lays bare the emotional core of her subjects with almost surgical precision. As they go about the business of living -- caring for ailing family members, spending a lonely, sleepless night in a hotel far from home, or reminiscing in an airport coffee shop -- they reveal the ache of adoration and devotion that so poignantly marks our inner lives.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: 3-trick Pony
Comment: The title story in this collection is hands-down one of the best short stories of all time and well worth the price of the book alone. Dark gives herself a very hard act to follow by placing this story at the beginning of the collection and, unfortunately, I think she mostly comes up short. The second story had a first half that was promising but then the narrative focus loosens and falls in the second half. From there on, the stories are one melodrama after another----readable, yes, but lacking depth. I found myself growing impatient with certain protagonists and their navel-gazing. There are also some highly-improbably set-ups that don't pay off, especially in The Tower, where Dark writes, unconvincingly, from a male point of view. Then, just when I was thinking that perhaps Dark was a one trick pony with the title story (what a wonderful trick it would be, though), come the two last stories, Home and Watch the Animals, both of which are compelling and heartfelt and wise and do everything you want a piece of literature to do. So, all in all, I would say, an inconsistent collection, but with the greatest promise of her best material to look forward to in future books. Next time I just hope she leaves out the filler
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Dark Enlightenment
Comment: I must admit that I came to this collection of stories after viewing the Christopher Reeve movie version of the title story. I was at once struck by the depth of life that infused each character and story in this collection. While the title story, "In the Gloaming", is perhaps the strongest and most compelling, each of the other nine stories in this collection echoes back along the same themes and questions.
The title story is a beautiful love letter to a mother who rediscovers her son as he is dying of AIDS, and is awakened to the love that is missing in her life. The closing scene between the mother and her distant husband is bittersweet, a poignant and finely-crafted ending. Throughout the other stories, which all have ties to the same wealthly Eastern town, are characters who are searching to come to terms with themselves and those around them. They are all on quests that may or may not have answers: "Close" tells of a married man who must make a decision between his wife and lover, while not wanting to have to give up either; "The Tower" is a more disturbing story about a confirmed, life-long bachelor who finally falls in love, only to discover that the woman who has awakened him may be his daughter; and "The Secret Spot" is one wife's vindication-gone-wrong, where an encounter with the woman she believes was her husband's mistress threatens to turn her entire life on its head.
Alice Elliott Dark writes prose that is refreshing and brisk. Her stories clip along, revealing her characters' idiosyncracies, while unfolding delicately at the same time. Their searches are not necessarily completed by the end of the story; there are many stories that end without reaching a conclusion, allowing the characters to live on in the minds of the readers. As the author is quoted as saying, characters "have their own lives and their own endings", which she has both enlightened and witheld for a captive audience.
Customer Rating:
Summary: In It!
Comment: I bought this book from Amazon.com's recommendations and I was not sorry at all that I did.The title story itself is moving and touching as it deals with a mother's experience as she slowly loses her son to AIDS. Dark's manner of narration is rich and vivid. As I was reading, I could not help but be involved in the mother's heart-wrenching struggle in trying to ease whatever pain her son was experiencing. The other stories were equally beautifully-written as it tugs at the reader's emotions. If there is one book to read during a retreat or while on vacation, this one is it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Learn about yourself
Comment: I've never been compelled to write a review, but "In the Gloaming" is quite simply the best story I've ever read. There isn't, to my knowledge, a tale that better conveys compassion and pathos, or has the ability to move the reader through the complete emotional experience.
On the whole, this collection won't take you far beyond its title story, but it's more than most accomplish in a life of writing. Raymond Carver is without a doubt my favorite writer, but Dark has managed to write my favorite story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Twilight and Evening Star"
Comment: It is now old news that John Updike selected the title story from this volume of short stories as one of the best American short stories of the century. Quite an accomplishment for Ms. Dark. "In The Gloaming" is the story of a young man with AIDS who comes home to die and his mother's caring for him in his last illness. Early in the story Laird and his mother Janet are sitting on the terrace at the close of day. "'The gloaming,' he said, suddenly. She nodded dreamily, automatically, then sat up. She turned to him. 'What?' Although she'd heard. 'I remember when I was little you took me over to the picture window and told me that in Scotland this time of day was called the 'gloaming.'. . .'I always thought it hurt you somehow that the day was over, but you said it was a beautiful time because for few moments the purple light made the whole world look like the Scottish highlands on a summer night.'" Thus Ms. Dark sets the mood for this beautifully and delicately understated story. Janet seizes the waning days of her son's life. Each fleeting moment is precious as both of these individuals seek to know more of each other in the little time they have left. Laird's father Martin husband is not so lucky. He is one of Ms. Dark's characters who suffer from opportunities lost, a recurring theme in several of these stories. I must say the only jarring note in this exquisite story is Janet's deciding on a bagpipe for her son's funeral. I understand that this is a Scottish instrument. I just have heard "Amazing Grace" played on the bagpipes one too many times at memorial services for friends and acquaintances who died of AIDS. This is purely my own bias and probably unfair to Ms. Dark.To me, many of these stories are equally as good as "In The Gloaming." I particularly liked "Home." This is again another story of the waning of life and the way loved ones react to the coming loss. In this instance,Gordon and Lil are being moved into an assisted living home--what a euphemism-- and Lil, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, asks and is granted permission to visit her home for one last time. There are no villains here, just decent people trying to make the best of a sad situation, the loss of health and ending of life as these two old people know it and their daughter Charlotte's trying to do what she perceives as the right thing for them. One can hardly fault her for doing what she has to do. Although she tries, she cannot know completely the utter horrow her mother faces at the loss of both her home and her intellect. These fine stories go straight to the heart.
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