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Dear Evelyn
Born between the wars in a working-class South London street, Harry Miles is a sensitive and capable boy who attends school on a scholarship and grows into a thoughtful young man. Full of energy and literary ambition, he visits Battersea Library in search of New instead, he discovers Evelyn, a magnetic and independent-minded woman from a street not far from his own.
This is an unconventional love story about two people who shape each other as they, their marriage and their country change. From London before the sexual revolution to the lewd frescos of Pompeii, from the acrid devastation of Churchill's North African campaign to the cloying bounty of new-built suburbs, Dear Evelyn is a novel of contrasts, whose portrait of a 70-year marriage unfolds in tender, spare and excruciating episodes.
This is an unconventional love story about two people who shape each other as they, their marriage and their country change. From London before the sexual revolution to the lewd frescos of Pompeii, from the acrid devastation of Churchill's North African campaign to the cloying bounty of new-built suburbs, Dear Evelyn is a novel of contrasts, whose portrait of a 70-year marriage unfolds in tender, spare and excruciating episodes.
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First published January 1, 2018
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About the author
Kathy Page
23 books47 followersShe has her BA from York (England) and her MA in writing from the University of East Anglia. A novelist and widely anthologised short-story writer, she has also written for television and radio. Her themes are loss, survival, and transformation: the magic by which a bad hand becomes a good chance. Her fifth novel, The Story of My Face, was long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and is optioned for a feature film. The sixth, Alphabet, was nominated for a Governor General's award in 2005. Her latest title, The Find, 2010, is her first novel set in Canada: a story about discovery, inheritance and fate, and a moving exploration of the possibilities that hide within a seemingly impossible relationship.
Kathy Page has taught fiction writing at Universities in England, Finland and Estonia, and held residencies in schools and a variety of other institutions/communities, including a fishing village and a men’s prison.
She now lives in British Columbia, Canada.
Kathy Page has taught fiction writing at Universities in England, Finland and Estonia, and held residencies in schools and a variety of other institutions/communities, including a fishing village and a men’s prison.
She now lives in British Columbia, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 150 reviews
December 12, 2019
I finished this book late last night and after turning that last page, I lay there thinking about Harry and Evelyn and their 70 year marriage. They were both so different- Harry, a poet and a romantic; Evelyn- a no nonsense, my way is the best way kind of person. They met just before the start of WWII, a time when it was hard to take things slow. Harry loved Evelyn's forthrightness and Evelyn loved Harry's steadfastness. This book is a reflection on their love and marriage and how it changed over time.
This was also about Harry and Evelyn's adult children and how they recall their growing up years- sometimes positively, but often negatively. That broke my heart.
This book did make me reflect on my own marriage (38 years and counting) and its evolution. I love books that cause me to lose sleep as I think of what the author was trying to say. Is she trying to show that this generation stayed together no matter what or is she trying to show there are different kinds of love ?
I found this to be a deeply compelling book. It is a quiet book that grew on me the more I got into it. I do think that not everyone will love this book, but I certainly did!!!!
Lines I loved:
Harry's English lit teacher says...."you will learn poetry so that you have it in you forever, beating like a second heart..."
" There was something surprising about the dailiness of life together, the way you came to understand each other in better ways, to see the more hidden parts of a personality..."
" It was shocking to realize how all the other stories that a life might become were there, waiting, jostling at your elbow, even when you had made a clear choice."
November 13, 2018
Rating: 3.5
“It was not as if he lacked backbone. He had withstood schoolyard bullies, the Germans, and countless liars and fools at work. Evelyn, though, was a different matter. Part of the problem was that he didn’t see it just as giving in. It was doing what he could to make things work. He could bend, she could not.”
Dear Evelyn is the story of the long marriage of Evelyn and Harry Miles, born and raised “between two wars in dense London streets, by a river channelled in concrete and topped with industrial froth, the air thick with the clatter and smoke of the railway, with the smells of the brewery and the factories where most people of their class were expected to work.” On the brink of World War II, the two accidentally meet on the steps of the Battersea Library. Evelyn drops a book; Harry picks it up and, caught almost immediately “in a great tide of longing,” offers to walk her home. The two talk as they go, and Harry ironically tells Evelyn he doesn’t care for routine, he doesn’t like being told what to do, and he has a hard time holding his tongue—all things he will spend the better part of his life having to do—with her. When they pass a number of “grand Victorian villas,” Evelyn exclaims: “Imagine living in one of those!” Harry will later identify that moment as the decisive one, when he committed himself to making Evelyn happy.
Not long after, the two are married. Soon Harry is off to war, fighting in Tunisia, while Evelyn moves from London to the country—with her infant daughter, Lillian. From Africa Harry writes long, sometimes lyrical letters to Evelyn—he has a literary bent and is a great lover of poetry, which sometimes works for him as a kind of medicine. Harry’s early letters are full of the longing of a young man in love; in the later ones, he is prone to dark thoughts and is weary of war. He writes more for himself than for her, Evelyn thinks dismissively, as she sets one such letter aside. (She will never recognize that Harry has an inner life.) She has her own wartime challenges, of course: She chooses rough conditions and manual labour on a wartime Gloucester farm rather than lodge in the city with her parents—her long-suffering, self-abnegating mother and her alcoholic, tubercular wastrel of a father. Her mother would only criticize Evelyn for her hasty marriage, and her father’s germs might infect baby Lillian. Both Harry and Evelyn encounter wartime “temptations” yet remain faithful.
Upon Harry’s return from Africa, the two can finally have an everyday domestic life. Harry wants “to love passionately,” go beyond himself, and “perhaps even to write.” He works hard to provide for his family, studying on weekends to improve his employment prospects. They have a second daughter, Valerie, and eventually, in early middle age, a third, Louise, who is trouble from the moment she’s conceived. In that third, resented pregnancy, Evelyn is stricken with intense morning sickness; she’s moody, irrational, a loose cannon—her essential intransigence is magnified. She would prefer not to have this baby, but it’s 1960, and the baby is born.
Harry oversees the building of a large house in the suburbs—at some distance from where he and Evelyn grew up. It’s what Evelyn wants, of course, and it signals the family’s rise from working to middle class, but it comes at a cost. Eldest daughter Lily observes that the upkeep of the new house consumes time the family used to spend on outings. Evelyn’s mother, May, laments that she can’t easily pop around to see her grand-daughters—but, then, May is always dissatisfied anyway. Harry considers it’ll take him forty years to pay down the debt. Yes, as much as Harry takes pride in being a good provider, he periodically chafes against the constraints of family life. At times, he longs for the freedom of an unsettled life. Always overriding this, however, is the need to keep Evelyn onside, to please her, and smooth over the difficulties. And Evelyn is certainly difficult. I found it hard to understand how anyone could love such a person. Reading page after page about her was more than enough for me. Good looks and “magnetism” apparently go quite a long way for some.
At one point, Harry reads a biography of Edwardian poet, Edward Thomas, and finds that the marital experience of the poet’s wife, Helen, resonates for him. Like her, Harry has had the task of “fitting . . . [himself] around someone driven and intransigent.” But Harry also has his blind spots. He is, for example, unaware that Evelyn, though conventional and rigid, also struggles at times with her domestic role and thinks back longingly to the time before her marriage when she was praised for her correspondence and reception work at a London law firm.
I had trouble warming to Page’s novel. I’m not crazy about wartime stories or epistolary novels, and that’s what this book at first seemed to be. (It actually wasn’t!) However, the main problem for me was Evelyn, an utterly infuriating, self-centred character, quite unable to recognize the needs of anyone beyond herself. Harry’s love, his weird psychological enslavement to her, seemed a curse of almost mythical proportions: “Evelyn was some kind of goddess, and he was just a man.” There is, as well, a slightly distant, cinematic quality to Page’s work. She provides some wonderfully precise period, location, and domestic details which anchor her book in time, but I felt I was often watching her protagonists rather than engaging with them emotionally. I also found the novel overly long by perhaps 50 to 75 pages. I think the same themes could have been communicated with greater economy.
Dear Evelyn initially reads less like a novel than a series of chronological, linked short stories, but, at around the halfway point, that changed for me. By then I had a better feel for Page’s style and for what she might be trying to do—that is, present a study of a marriage: show a couple, individually and together, across time, at certain critical or emotionally significant moments in their relationship. Page’s is a rich and insightful work that is infused with poetry and literary references. Like the best literature, it feels true—especially in its communication of the idea that people do not change; they just become more and more themselves. In the end, however, this was a book I could admire only. Something—likely too much Evelyn—held me back from love.
“It was not as if he lacked backbone. He had withstood schoolyard bullies, the Germans, and countless liars and fools at work. Evelyn, though, was a different matter. Part of the problem was that he didn’t see it just as giving in. It was doing what he could to make things work. He could bend, she could not.”
Dear Evelyn is the story of the long marriage of Evelyn and Harry Miles, born and raised “between two wars in dense London streets, by a river channelled in concrete and topped with industrial froth, the air thick with the clatter and smoke of the railway, with the smells of the brewery and the factories where most people of their class were expected to work.” On the brink of World War II, the two accidentally meet on the steps of the Battersea Library. Evelyn drops a book; Harry picks it up and, caught almost immediately “in a great tide of longing,” offers to walk her home. The two talk as they go, and Harry ironically tells Evelyn he doesn’t care for routine, he doesn’t like being told what to do, and he has a hard time holding his tongue—all things he will spend the better part of his life having to do—with her. When they pass a number of “grand Victorian villas,” Evelyn exclaims: “Imagine living in one of those!” Harry will later identify that moment as the decisive one, when he committed himself to making Evelyn happy.
Not long after, the two are married. Soon Harry is off to war, fighting in Tunisia, while Evelyn moves from London to the country—with her infant daughter, Lillian. From Africa Harry writes long, sometimes lyrical letters to Evelyn—he has a literary bent and is a great lover of poetry, which sometimes works for him as a kind of medicine. Harry’s early letters are full of the longing of a young man in love; in the later ones, he is prone to dark thoughts and is weary of war. He writes more for himself than for her, Evelyn thinks dismissively, as she sets one such letter aside. (She will never recognize that Harry has an inner life.) She has her own wartime challenges, of course: She chooses rough conditions and manual labour on a wartime Gloucester farm rather than lodge in the city with her parents—her long-suffering, self-abnegating mother and her alcoholic, tubercular wastrel of a father. Her mother would only criticize Evelyn for her hasty marriage, and her father’s germs might infect baby Lillian. Both Harry and Evelyn encounter wartime “temptations” yet remain faithful.
Upon Harry’s return from Africa, the two can finally have an everyday domestic life. Harry wants “to love passionately,” go beyond himself, and “perhaps even to write.” He works hard to provide for his family, studying on weekends to improve his employment prospects. They have a second daughter, Valerie, and eventually, in early middle age, a third, Louise, who is trouble from the moment she’s conceived. In that third, resented pregnancy, Evelyn is stricken with intense morning sickness; she’s moody, irrational, a loose cannon—her essential intransigence is magnified. She would prefer not to have this baby, but it’s 1960, and the baby is born.
Harry oversees the building of a large house in the suburbs—at some distance from where he and Evelyn grew up. It’s what Evelyn wants, of course, and it signals the family’s rise from working to middle class, but it comes at a cost. Eldest daughter Lily observes that the upkeep of the new house consumes time the family used to spend on outings. Evelyn’s mother, May, laments that she can’t easily pop around to see her grand-daughters—but, then, May is always dissatisfied anyway. Harry considers it’ll take him forty years to pay down the debt. Yes, as much as Harry takes pride in being a good provider, he periodically chafes against the constraints of family life. At times, he longs for the freedom of an unsettled life. Always overriding this, however, is the need to keep Evelyn onside, to please her, and smooth over the difficulties. And Evelyn is certainly difficult. I found it hard to understand how anyone could love such a person. Reading page after page about her was more than enough for me. Good looks and “magnetism” apparently go quite a long way for some.
At one point, Harry reads a biography of Edwardian poet, Edward Thomas, and finds that the marital experience of the poet’s wife, Helen, resonates for him. Like her, Harry has had the task of “fitting . . . [himself] around someone driven and intransigent.” But Harry also has his blind spots. He is, for example, unaware that Evelyn, though conventional and rigid, also struggles at times with her domestic role and thinks back longingly to the time before her marriage when she was praised for her correspondence and reception work at a London law firm.
I had trouble warming to Page’s novel. I’m not crazy about wartime stories or epistolary novels, and that’s what this book at first seemed to be. (It actually wasn’t!) However, the main problem for me was Evelyn, an utterly infuriating, self-centred character, quite unable to recognize the needs of anyone beyond herself. Harry’s love, his weird psychological enslavement to her, seemed a curse of almost mythical proportions: “Evelyn was some kind of goddess, and he was just a man.” There is, as well, a slightly distant, cinematic quality to Page’s work. She provides some wonderfully precise period, location, and domestic details which anchor her book in time, but I felt I was often watching her protagonists rather than engaging with them emotionally. I also found the novel overly long by perhaps 50 to 75 pages. I think the same themes could have been communicated with greater economy.
Dear Evelyn initially reads less like a novel than a series of chronological, linked short stories, but, at around the halfway point, that changed for me. By then I had a better feel for Page’s style and for what she might be trying to do—that is, present a study of a marriage: show a couple, individually and together, across time, at certain critical or emotionally significant moments in their relationship. Page’s is a rich and insightful work that is infused with poetry and literary references. Like the best literature, it feels true—especially in its communication of the idea that people do not change; they just become more and more themselves. In the end, however, this was a book I could admire only. Something—likely too much Evelyn—held me back from love.
September 22, 2018
Oh my goodness, what a wonderful story. What a wonderful ending. I so love Harry! Evelyn was a bit of a pill wasn't she? But this is a beautiful story of a marriage, imagined and not so imagined from letters the author's father wrote her mother during the war. Loved it. Loved the ending very much! Shed a few tears for sure.
March 4, 2020
Sorry to be so crass, but our dear Evelyn is a real b*tch. She was unlikable to the point that I didn’t take much enjoyment from the book.
November 11, 2018
Evelyn, her spine straight, her shoulders back, strides ahead with the two girls in her wake, Valerie wobbling along on the scooter he made for Lily.
He soon catches up, walks next to his wife. Dear Evelyn, you are the sweetest wife...he used to write her in his letters home. Dear Evelyn. My dearest.
“Oh –” She looks straight ahead as she speaks. “I thought you said you wanted to be left in peace. And frankly, so do I.” Touché. He has to admire her skill with the rapier; though at the same time, it brings him to the brink of tears. Why? What are they doing? Such a waste! He walks beside her, but says nothing.
Dear Evelyn is the story of a seventy year relationship – beginning with the birth of Harry Miles in a “sooty little London terrace house” during WWI and ending with some of Harry's last experiences in a comfortable nursing home. Along the way, we meet Evelyn Hill – a spoiled, headstrong, and beautiful young woman from the same working-class neighbourhood whom Harry finds irresistible – and as they marry, have a family, and move firmly into the middle-class, it's aching to watch as happiness never really finds the pair. If I had a complaint it would be that author Kathy Page felt the need to remind me too many times about the childhood forces that made Evelyn who she was, but I can't deny that watching this couple age together tells a satisfying story of the twentieth century, and ultimately, delivers an emotional wallop. Winner of the 2018 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Dear Evelyn is worth a look.
Unreasonable, he felt, put things mildly – truth was, there was a line between strong-minded and outrageous that Evelyn now crossed with increasing frequency. Though sometimes it was his fault, for goading her. Or, according to his daughters, for letting her get away with murder. Or even, as he admitted to himself, because there were still times when he found Evelyn's anger arousing, and enjoyed making up afterwards...
When Harry was at school, he was the only student who responded to the poetry that their WWI veteran teacher – wounded in body and mind – offered to the boys. Throughout his life, Harry would carry a notebook in his pocket for when inspiration struck, but sadly, he was never able to make words do what he wanted them to. Even meeting Evelyn as he did – bumping into her on the stairs of the local library as he was entering and she was leaving, and then offering to walk her home – shows Harry literally turning his back on the world of books and reading to which he had intended to devote his life. Within two years, Harry joined the army and was shipped off to fight the Axis Powers in North Africa, and when he returned, despite having vowed to himself never to be ground down by routine, Harry's main priority became to give Evelyn everything she desired – which somehow resulted in Harry becoming a municipal beancounter. But none of what Harry provided made Evelyn truly happy: the big house and garden made her obsessive about housekeeping, his attempts to be conciliatory made her furious at his subduedness, and every time she complained to their three daughters over the years, they would always seem to take their father's side in things. It's hard to watch both of these characters as they age – neither is truly happy, yet neither of them considers leaving (even if their more modern daughters think a divorce is in order).
Her hunger for life seemed starker and more desperate without the distracting glow of youth, also less charming, more primitive. It was growing more powerful; as she felt the pressure of mortality, the life force in her, the ego, or whatever you called it, the thing about her that everyone noticed, pushed back harder. This was Evelyn: strong, hungry, wilful, beautiful, sometimes kind, sometimes harsh: completely extraordinary. The woman he had met on the library steps thirty-five years ago had changed only in degree. He had chosen her and continued to do so. What love was had changed to the point that he no longer understood it, though he knew its scale and depths, and knew that it was most of who he was.
The narrative in Dear Evelyn can jump ahead years at a time, but the little vignettes are enough to paint a portrait of an entire life. I really enjoyed the bits about Harry's war experience, and also Evelyn's challenges as a woman pre-feminism (how galling would it be to go to the doctor for heart palpitations and have him not only perform a pelvic exam, but recommend volunteer work or hobbies to occupy one's mind?) As uncomfortable as it is to watch the long-suffering Harry squirm under Evelyn's thumb, there are many scenes that make Evelyn's own unsoothable pain apparent; if only love were enough. As the story approaches this pair's elderly years, it becomes nearly excruciating to watch as minds and bodies – and maybe even love itself – eventually waste away. Four stars is a rounding up.
November 1, 2018
I was enjoying the book, the period detail, the characters, but the last section depicting Harry’s deteriorating health and his wife’s reactions grabbed my heart and would not let go. How did the author so eerily get inside the mind of Harry in his final years? She shows us what he is losing—his short term memory, his patience for his difficult wife—and what remains: love, and his essential kindness. Although this section was emotional for me to read, it was my favourite part. Anyone who has visited a nursing home patient or watched the decline of an elderly parent will get a lot of insight into their inner lives. This is an honest and unflinching look at old age which will stay with me.
Not since Margaret Laurence’s Stone Angel have I been this moved by a book that shows the inner life of elderly people. It made me reflect on the possibility of a similar future with my husband as we age.
Thank you, Kathy Page!
Not since Margaret Laurence’s Stone Angel have I been this moved by a book that shows the inner life of elderly people. It made me reflect on the possibility of a similar future with my husband as we age.
Thank you, Kathy Page!
January 10, 2019
Harry is the son of a working-class couple, an aspirational "scholarship boy" with a love of poetry and reading. Evelyn comes from a background not unlike Harry's and she shares his appetite for a better life.
Both characters are meticulously crafted in the hands of Kathy Page. In a mere 300 pages, she encapsulates and showcases their 70-year "ordinary" marriage that is anything BUT. All the milestone are there - the war years that separate and test the marriage, the ensuing house and children, the chasing of the dream, the inevitable arguments and health issues.
But Kathy Page is seeking - and capturing - a deeper truth here. Harry's aspirations lead to a greater alienation of self - a self that never quite finds the time to engage in the simple pleasures of life that once were so important. And Evelyn is genetically incapable of being happy, with her obsessional organizational skills, her control tendencies, and her out-of-proportion responses to things that don't go her way.
Harry's desire to placate Evelyn and assure her of his love test him and separate him from his desire to "stay open to the possibility of an ecstatic life." The marriage - the life - is anyone's definition of material and career success, yet poignantly, it is a sad tale of a patient man who gives his all to placate his perfectionist spouse.
The dynamic of their marriage plays out against changing times in Britain with all the shifts in mores and social norms. As a character-driven reader, I thought this novel was superb and beautifully paced and proof once again that beneath the surface, no marriage is quite what it seems.
Both characters are meticulously crafted in the hands of Kathy Page. In a mere 300 pages, she encapsulates and showcases their 70-year "ordinary" marriage that is anything BUT. All the milestone are there - the war years that separate and test the marriage, the ensuing house and children, the chasing of the dream, the inevitable arguments and health issues.
But Kathy Page is seeking - and capturing - a deeper truth here. Harry's aspirations lead to a greater alienation of self - a self that never quite finds the time to engage in the simple pleasures of life that once were so important. And Evelyn is genetically incapable of being happy, with her obsessional organizational skills, her control tendencies, and her out-of-proportion responses to things that don't go her way.
Harry's desire to placate Evelyn and assure her of his love test him and separate him from his desire to "stay open to the possibility of an ecstatic life." The marriage - the life - is anyone's definition of material and career success, yet poignantly, it is a sad tale of a patient man who gives his all to placate his perfectionist spouse.
The dynamic of their marriage plays out against changing times in Britain with all the shifts in mores and social norms. As a character-driven reader, I thought this novel was superb and beautifully paced and proof once again that beneath the surface, no marriage is quite what it seems.
December 2, 2018
I loved this book, and I’m a very picky reader. Dear Evelyn was very touching & poignant, lyrically written, delving not only into the trials & tribulations of a long marriage, but the act of aging in all its emotional truth. Very much reminded me of Anne Tyler’s writing. If you enjoy well written, character driven literature that makes you think AND feel, I highly recommend this book.
January 7, 2019
If you appreciate beautiful prose and a well-paced story, I highly recommend, “Dear Evelyn”, by Kathy Page, the story of Harry and Evelyn and their long marriage. I heard it recommended on NPR as part of a 2018 year-end review of books and it sounded intriguing. I’m so glad I trusted my instincts and bought it. Now I’m keen to read more of Kathy Page’s novels. What a writer!
February 5, 2019
I did not love this book. I particularly disliked Evelyn. I suspect the author wrote this book based on her parents’ relationship and perhaps a cache of letters they wrote to one another? It is well written but not much happens and it is hard to enjoy when one of the main characters is so unlikeable.
December 25, 2018
One of the best books I've ever read. Harry, especially, is written with such compassion I suspect the author has a father she loves no matter what. Evelyn is as honestly written a character as I've ever read. Love, love, love this book.
June 25, 2019
“Dear Evelyn” is basically a study of a marriage, but it’s really so much more than that. The story starts with our two protagonists, Evelyn and Harry, when they are children, and takes us from the moment they meet right up to the end of their lives. We follow snapshots of them (the book is only 300 pages long) through all the ups and downs of an everyday relationship: their dating and marriage, the raising of children, the inevitable health issues as they age. It sounds pretty basic, but Katie Page writes beautifully and the reader can’t help but be drawn in to Evelyn and Harry’s lives: the early love and passion that was tested during their years of separation during WWII; the social pressures to be successful; the challenges of raising three children who were very different from one another; the struggles that come when they become elderly. So many topics are addressed and handled so authentically: what does a married woman do when she finds herself pregnant and doesn’t necessarily want to be? When you’re in the middle of a war and you may never see your spouse again, is it OK to have feelings for someone else even if you don’t act upon them? When your partner’s health deteriorates more rapidly than your own as you age, at what point do you look after your own needs first?
I must admit, I was definitely more “Team Harry” by the latter part of the book, but Evelyn’s entire life was so negatively impacted by her relationship with her father that even though I didn’t like her actions, I could understand why she was behaving the way she was. I may not have loved her, but she certainly was an interesting character! Here was a woman who was constrained by the postwar times; she would have fared much better had she been born fifty years later.
I learned in Page’s notes at the back of the book that she used actual letters that her own father had written to her mother during the war (with their permission) to add authenticity. What a lovely tribute to her parents!
I must admit, I was definitely more “Team Harry” by the latter part of the book, but Evelyn’s entire life was so negatively impacted by her relationship with her father that even though I didn’t like her actions, I could understand why she was behaving the way she was. I may not have loved her, but she certainly was an interesting character! Here was a woman who was constrained by the postwar times; she would have fared much better had she been born fifty years later.
I learned in Page’s notes at the back of the book that she used actual letters that her own father had written to her mother during the war (with their permission) to add authenticity. What a lovely tribute to her parents!
January 31, 2022
Loved this book. Great story and well written.
August 7, 2019
Oh! I had seen some negative takes on this novel so came to it with low expectations. And low expectations can be a gift! I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I might.
This is a slow, entirely character driven account of a marriage. We meet Harry at birth (!!!), and Evelyn when Harry first spies her. The reader gets to see how they grow and change over the course of their long, long marriage.
It's up close and personal, and Page seems to invite our judgment in her "warts and all" depiction, particularly of Evelyn.
The POV is interesting here. On the surface it is omniscient, yet it seems to me to be more Harry's tale than Evelyn's. Hmm.
One of the themes here is how we can settle into partnership and allow ourselves to drift into habits of mind and character that can harm the one we love most. I found that to be both thought provoking and poignant.
This is a slow, entirely character driven account of a marriage. We meet Harry at birth (!!!), and Evelyn when Harry first spies her. The reader gets to see how they grow and change over the course of their long, long marriage.
It's up close and personal, and Page seems to invite our judgment in her "warts and all" depiction, particularly of Evelyn.
The POV is interesting here. On the surface it is omniscient, yet it seems to me to be more Harry's tale than Evelyn's. Hmm.
One of the themes here is how we can settle into partnership and allow ourselves to drift into habits of mind and character that can harm the one we love most. I found that to be both thought provoking and poignant.
September 18, 2018
Kathy Page, like Sue Gee and other writers who’ve perhaps been longlisted once or twice for the Women’s Prize, has flown largely under the radar of publishing journalism while also writing damned good books. Dear Evelyn is a novel that takes as its form the study of a marriage, from the bride and groom’s childhoods in post-war south London to their eventual deaths in nursing homes. Page is a magician at evoking a sense of past-ness, and her characterisation is extraordinarily skillful and tender: both Evelyn and her husband Harry can be extremely difficult, but the reader understands and feels for them both. Exceptional work.
Originally published here.
Originally published here.
January 4, 2019
struggled to really get into it and just didn't enjoy it.
January 21, 2019
I wanted to love this book. It's so beautifully written, poetic. But I lost interest about halfway through and just couldn't finish it.
February 11, 2019
I love that Harry never stopped loving Evelyn, even as he deteriorated. Evelyn was a bit more difficult for me to understand. The writing is beautiful and very detailed.
August 30, 2020
This is quite lovely and also bittersweet. It's really just about a life of a couple through the 70 years they are together; the book starts between the two world wars and goes until approximately the end of the century. Harry is the kinder, more likeable character. Evelyn is more headstrong, harder to know. Reading some GR reviews after finishing the book, some people mention not liking Evelyn (to put it mildly). Yes, to a certain extent, I understand that. But I also have sympathy for her character, as she holds herself (and others) to an impossibly high standard, and I feel that being a child of an alcoholic (who also smoked and had TB, while her mother was an enabler) informed many of her choices and actions through life. It also made me think about how women are judged more harshly than men throughout their lives. I think the book realistically portrays a long marriage, the love and anger, the like and dislike, the tolerance and the just barely tolerating each other, things said and yet so many things left unsaid too; all through times lean and flush, through health and sickness.
There are references to literature in here (Rebecca, as well as the scandal surrounding the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover), as well as poetry, so much poetry sprinkled throughout.
Early in the book are letters from Harry to Evelyn while he is away at war. I have a few of my grandparents' letters to each other during WWII and the ones in the book reminded me of my grandparents' letters. In the Acknowledgements, Page states, "Harry and Evelyn are characters, not real people. That said, my first and deepest thanks must go to my parents. I am particularly grateful to my father for his letters to my mother during the Second World War and its aftermath, and to my mother for keeping them. In 'Water, Water, Everywhere' and 'Bascombe', some of these letters of my father's, used with his permission, form an important part of the narrative. ... My father is, then, the posthumous co-author of some parts of this book, ...."
There are references to literature in here (Rebecca, as well as the scandal surrounding the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover), as well as poetry, so much poetry sprinkled throughout.
Early in the book are letters from Harry to Evelyn while he is away at war. I have a few of my grandparents' letters to each other during WWII and the ones in the book reminded me of my grandparents' letters. In the Acknowledgements, Page states, "Harry and Evelyn are characters, not real people. That said, my first and deepest thanks must go to my parents. I am particularly grateful to my father for his letters to my mother during the Second World War and its aftermath, and to my mother for keeping them. In 'Water, Water, Everywhere' and 'Bascombe', some of these letters of my father's, used with his permission, form an important part of the narrative. ... My father is, then, the posthumous co-author of some parts of this book, ...."
December 20, 2023
This book was ok. Basically, it just followed the lives of a couple. The ending was sad but, unfortunately, realistic.
April 10, 2020
This was a beautiful story that made me cry.
February 9, 2024
I literally cannot be bothered to push through the last chapter of this. No words can articulate my disappointment in this book.
July 19, 2019
Dear Evelyn tells thd story of Harry and Evelyn as they meet, fall in love, get married, deal with war, raise children and grow old. We see them Individually and together across time.
At first glance I thought this was going to be an epistolary and war time novel. It is not. It really is more a Study of a marriage.
This book did not blow me away. I could not stand Evelyn. She was self centered centered, selfish, and unable to see anyone elses needs, except hers. It was hard to understand Harrys devotion and almost worship of Evelyn and i femt like he never really saw her for her true self for what she was. But he stuck with her through the end neber giving up in marrage or Evelyn.
Both Harry and Evelyn sacrificed, she lost her identity of of an accomplished independent woman. Harry lost his independence, sacrificed adventure and lived a life of constantly being told what to do, something we learned he hated during their courtship when he told her this. Ironically he lived his whole life being told what to do by Evelyn. Page did an excellent job if convincing me that people do not change over time. Perhaps they become more themselves.
The end was wrenching, just wrenching and not only confirmed my dislike for Evelyn, but quite possibly elevated it to hatred.
Page’s writing is beautiful she described the places so well and vividly and included cultural refrences (including literary references) succesfully grounding me in the time period and place. But, i was never able to engage with the characters and felt like I had too much of Evelyn which is why i only liked this book...not loved it.
At first glance I thought this was going to be an epistolary and war time novel. It is not. It really is more a Study of a marriage.
This book did not blow me away. I could not stand Evelyn. She was self centered centered, selfish, and unable to see anyone elses needs, except hers. It was hard to understand Harrys devotion and almost worship of Evelyn and i femt like he never really saw her for her true self for what she was. But he stuck with her through the end neber giving up in marrage or Evelyn.
Both Harry and Evelyn sacrificed, she lost her identity of of an accomplished independent woman. Harry lost his independence, sacrificed adventure and lived a life of constantly being told what to do, something we learned he hated during their courtship when he told her this. Ironically he lived his whole life being told what to do by Evelyn. Page did an excellent job if convincing me that people do not change over time. Perhaps they become more themselves.
The end was wrenching, just wrenching and not only confirmed my dislike for Evelyn, but quite possibly elevated it to hatred.
Page’s writing is beautiful she described the places so well and vividly and included cultural refrences (including literary references) succesfully grounding me in the time period and place. But, i was never able to engage with the characters and felt like I had too much of Evelyn which is why i only liked this book...not loved it.
December 28, 2019
I loved this book, would never have found it only for the recommendation of a friend. Page has an eye for tiny details and drew much of her story from the letters written by her father to her mother in WW2 (with the permission of her sisters).
Basically it is the story of a marriage between polar opposites : Harry, a dreamy poet of a man and Evelyn, a hard-boiled no-nonsense women. He adores this quality in her. She leans on his steadfastness and devotion.
Her troubled and contemptuous relationship with her father dominates her attitude and she achieves breaking away from the narrow confines of her terraced, slum existence to the higher plane of suburbia based on Harry's diligent work.
The stories of their three daughters unfolds also.
But it is the story of this marriage that resonates without any sentimentality and the ending broke my heart. I was getting so used to them.
5/5
Basically it is the story of a marriage between polar opposites : Harry, a dreamy poet of a man and Evelyn, a hard-boiled no-nonsense women. He adores this quality in her. She leans on his steadfastness and devotion.
Her troubled and contemptuous relationship with her father dominates her attitude and she achieves breaking away from the narrow confines of her terraced, slum existence to the higher plane of suburbia based on Harry's diligent work.
The stories of their three daughters unfolds also.
But it is the story of this marriage that resonates without any sentimentality and the ending broke my heart. I was getting so used to them.
5/5
Read
February 20, 2019You see me Kathy Page. Your words break my heart, make me reflect, encourage me to do better. Thank you.
December 19, 2018
This novel, a study of a 70-year marriage, is about ordinary people but is extraordinary in quality.
Harry Miles, a sensitive man with a love of poetry, meets Evelyn Hill and falls in love immediately. He describes her personality when he first meets her: “She had an appetite for the better things, quick judgement, a very strong will, a dislike of doubt or ambiguity, and a way of making her words count. Her opinions and feelings stormed through her. She warmed to appreciation.” The two marry during the early years of World War II, and because Harry enlists and is sent to North Africa, their first years are “islands of cohabitation in an ocean of separation.” After the war, they begin what Harry calls “a new marriage: real now, an everyday, actual thing instead of a frenzied week trying to make up for lost time and then a slew of letters.”
After the war, Harry has clear hopes for his life. He does not want to be a “slug of a man, pale and oblivious, bored, existing, yes, but not much more than that”; instead, “Having survived the war, I hope not to be ground down by the peace. I want to stay alert. To love passionately. To go beyond myself. Even, still, to write.” However, Harry loves Evelyn and wants to give her everything she wants: “He is her agent. She articulates an aim, he finds the way.” He takes a job in municipal construction and works hard so they eventually have a beautiful home with room for a large garden. They raise three children who have opportunities denied their parents. They should be happy but that is not the case, especially as they age and contend with physical infirmities.
Harry observes that “Marriages were not equal or fair” and it is obvious from the beginning that his marriage to Evelyn will not be either. Harry loves Evelyn beyond measure and when not with her tries to write about his feelings: “But despite or because of the intensity of his feelings, it was impossible. He could barely read. It was as if he had lost all access to language.” Evelyn, on the other hand, misses “his attention to her comfort and well-being, the feeling of her own value, a deep acknowledgement of that. On her part, there was no suffering, no feverishness, no lovesickness.” Harry wants his wife to be happy and early on decides that he will devote himself to giving her what she wants. When they move into a new home with a garden he tells her, “’We’d only known each other about half an hour . . . but I knew then that you must have your own house with a garden. . . . I knew I must get it for you.’” Her response is, “’I just wish the garden would grow faster.’”
There is an overwhelming feeling of sadness because of how Harry’s love is not returned in kind and his sacrifices are unappreciated. He takes a job he does not enjoy because it provides financial security and enables him to give Evelyn what she wants and his children what they need. Unfortunately, he loses himself in the process: “He would never complete a poem to his satisfaction, much less send one to a little magazine, however much he had once imagined he might do such a thing. . . . And he was no longer the young man coming home to his wife after years of war, vowing not to be ground down by routine, to stay open to the possibility of an ecstatic life.” His is a diminished, disappointed life devoted to fitting “around someone driven and intransigent.”
Harry believes the words of a favourite sonnet (Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks / But bears it out even to the edge of doom) and the sentiment is true in his case: “He had loved her all his adult life, long after the gloss of their youth and its illusions had been worn away and left them with the essentials of who they were, along with a collection of sometimes contradictory memories … He had never denied her anything, material or emotional, that he could provide.” Evelyn’s decisions in their waning years suggests that her feelings have changed; in fact, even during the war years, when Harry is “low and worn out” and writes about his “dark thoughts,” she is not understanding: “this Harry was not exactly like the one she remembered. This man was less practical, less positive, and less affectionate.” Their daughters tell Harry that “he was too accommodating with Evelyn” but “he didn’t see it just as giving in. It was doing what he could to make things work. He could bend, she could not.” He also fears that if he had stood up to her, “he would have lost her, and that was unthinkable.” Evelyn, however, interprets his constant accommodations as a sign of weakness and she dislikes “compromise, weakness, vagueness.”
Evelyn is not easy to like. She is such a self-centred and domineering person who is never satisfied. At the beginning Harry loves Evelyn’s strong-mindedness: “one of the things he loved about Evelyn was her fierce pride, her willingness to argue even when the facts were against her, to interrupt, to refuse, to insist-.” Later, when he is especially frustrated with his job and speaks without thinking, these traits are turned against him and he realizes “How very sensitive Evelyn is to . . . any criticism or lack of respect, whether real or perceived. How, thinking herself slighted, she will put everything she has into self-defence. How she can be vicious.” As she ages, “She had become more intensely herself . . . she understood duty and believed in it, yet in practice found it intolerable … When she wanted something, it drove her. She experienced her own feelings with great intensity, but often failed to accept those of others, especially if they differed from hers.”
Despite this negative portrayal, it is possible to have some sympathy for Evelyn. She enjoyed her work at a law firm but was dismissed once she married. She is not prepared for her role as a wife; she has to learn how to cook and thinks of the house as something she must put “under control,” so much so that she detests Harry’s collection of books because of “the fussy, old-fashioned effect it gave a room, especially since his book jackets did not match.” She struggles with motherhood; one of her daughters says, “’She’s just not a natural carer.’” When she speaks to her doctor about some concerns, he is rather dismissive. Then there’s a late pregnancy which she didn’t want. And there is no doubt that her father’s alcoholism had a long-lasting effect on her life; certainly, his behaviour and her mother’s reactions help account for Evelyn’s need to be in control.
This is a novel of character which is breathtakingly realistic. I understand why it won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Page’s other novels have also been nominated for prestigious awards, so I will be checking them out.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Harry Miles, a sensitive man with a love of poetry, meets Evelyn Hill and falls in love immediately. He describes her personality when he first meets her: “She had an appetite for the better things, quick judgement, a very strong will, a dislike of doubt or ambiguity, and a way of making her words count. Her opinions and feelings stormed through her. She warmed to appreciation.” The two marry during the early years of World War II, and because Harry enlists and is sent to North Africa, their first years are “islands of cohabitation in an ocean of separation.” After the war, they begin what Harry calls “a new marriage: real now, an everyday, actual thing instead of a frenzied week trying to make up for lost time and then a slew of letters.”
After the war, Harry has clear hopes for his life. He does not want to be a “slug of a man, pale and oblivious, bored, existing, yes, but not much more than that”; instead, “Having survived the war, I hope not to be ground down by the peace. I want to stay alert. To love passionately. To go beyond myself. Even, still, to write.” However, Harry loves Evelyn and wants to give her everything she wants: “He is her agent. She articulates an aim, he finds the way.” He takes a job in municipal construction and works hard so they eventually have a beautiful home with room for a large garden. They raise three children who have opportunities denied their parents. They should be happy but that is not the case, especially as they age and contend with physical infirmities.
Harry observes that “Marriages were not equal or fair” and it is obvious from the beginning that his marriage to Evelyn will not be either. Harry loves Evelyn beyond measure and when not with her tries to write about his feelings: “But despite or because of the intensity of his feelings, it was impossible. He could barely read. It was as if he had lost all access to language.” Evelyn, on the other hand, misses “his attention to her comfort and well-being, the feeling of her own value, a deep acknowledgement of that. On her part, there was no suffering, no feverishness, no lovesickness.” Harry wants his wife to be happy and early on decides that he will devote himself to giving her what she wants. When they move into a new home with a garden he tells her, “’We’d only known each other about half an hour . . . but I knew then that you must have your own house with a garden. . . . I knew I must get it for you.’” Her response is, “’I just wish the garden would grow faster.’”
There is an overwhelming feeling of sadness because of how Harry’s love is not returned in kind and his sacrifices are unappreciated. He takes a job he does not enjoy because it provides financial security and enables him to give Evelyn what she wants and his children what they need. Unfortunately, he loses himself in the process: “He would never complete a poem to his satisfaction, much less send one to a little magazine, however much he had once imagined he might do such a thing. . . . And he was no longer the young man coming home to his wife after years of war, vowing not to be ground down by routine, to stay open to the possibility of an ecstatic life.” His is a diminished, disappointed life devoted to fitting “around someone driven and intransigent.”
Harry believes the words of a favourite sonnet (Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks / But bears it out even to the edge of doom) and the sentiment is true in his case: “He had loved her all his adult life, long after the gloss of their youth and its illusions had been worn away and left them with the essentials of who they were, along with a collection of sometimes contradictory memories … He had never denied her anything, material or emotional, that he could provide.” Evelyn’s decisions in their waning years suggests that her feelings have changed; in fact, even during the war years, when Harry is “low and worn out” and writes about his “dark thoughts,” she is not understanding: “this Harry was not exactly like the one she remembered. This man was less practical, less positive, and less affectionate.” Their daughters tell Harry that “he was too accommodating with Evelyn” but “he didn’t see it just as giving in. It was doing what he could to make things work. He could bend, she could not.” He also fears that if he had stood up to her, “he would have lost her, and that was unthinkable.” Evelyn, however, interprets his constant accommodations as a sign of weakness and she dislikes “compromise, weakness, vagueness.”
Evelyn is not easy to like. She is such a self-centred and domineering person who is never satisfied. At the beginning Harry loves Evelyn’s strong-mindedness: “one of the things he loved about Evelyn was her fierce pride, her willingness to argue even when the facts were against her, to interrupt, to refuse, to insist-.” Later, when he is especially frustrated with his job and speaks without thinking, these traits are turned against him and he realizes “How very sensitive Evelyn is to . . . any criticism or lack of respect, whether real or perceived. How, thinking herself slighted, she will put everything she has into self-defence. How she can be vicious.” As she ages, “She had become more intensely herself . . . she understood duty and believed in it, yet in practice found it intolerable … When she wanted something, it drove her. She experienced her own feelings with great intensity, but often failed to accept those of others, especially if they differed from hers.”
Despite this negative portrayal, it is possible to have some sympathy for Evelyn. She enjoyed her work at a law firm but was dismissed once she married. She is not prepared for her role as a wife; she has to learn how to cook and thinks of the house as something she must put “under control,” so much so that she detests Harry’s collection of books because of “the fussy, old-fashioned effect it gave a room, especially since his book jackets did not match.” She struggles with motherhood; one of her daughters says, “’She’s just not a natural carer.’” When she speaks to her doctor about some concerns, he is rather dismissive. Then there’s a late pregnancy which she didn’t want. And there is no doubt that her father’s alcoholism had a long-lasting effect on her life; certainly, his behaviour and her mother’s reactions help account for Evelyn’s need to be in control.
This is a novel of character which is breathtakingly realistic. I understand why it won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Page’s other novels have also been nominated for prestigious awards, so I will be checking them out.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
May 20, 2019
Unforgettable love story spanning 70 years... beautiful prose, at times heart-melting, at times excruciating and ever so painful. The characters are so well developed and how the author got into Harry's mind in the last part of the book ! I loved Harry . This story makes me think and reflect on my own marriage, my own words and opportunities of kindness that mean so much to the other person that are so easily given and received. I reflected on the way we treat each other in our older years, when as we age the filters can go, and what comfort memories can bring and soften the (at times) razor sharp cruelty of words. Did I say I loved Harry ? I loved Harry. Sweet man, reminded me of my father, who never forgot the past as he recalled how he and mom were, and the world was - tinged with melancholy as Harry was. Some may not like this story, perhaps too vividly descriptive of the aging years and the thoughtless cruelty that words and actions can bring; but it was real, the way life brings us both to the heights of ecstasy and depth of wretchedness....and all the in-betweens.
March 26, 2019
I’m being generous with my 3-star rating...I found the book only so-so. I suppose I was influenced by the audible narrator (hard to listen to, she spoke with very little inflection and rarely paused) and by the fact I didn’t much like the main character Evelyn (and I really wanted to like her a lot since we share a name). I did find the last bit about Harry, Evelyn’s devoted husband, touching.
May 6, 2019
I read this book over the weekend. It was a love story,it was a marriage. “ A searching,and touching ,depiction of the places where married lives merge and the places where they never do” (Kirkus Reviews)
May 16, 2019
Very poignant book. Well written, totally compelling, and a 3 hanky story
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