She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons: A Life in Novels

by Kathleen Hill

This memoir takes readers around the world, from New York to Nigeria, exploring a life illuminated by novels.
 
As a child in music class, Kathleen Hill comes upon Willa Cather’s Lucy Gayheart, and the novel prepares her for a drowning death that soon occurs in her own life. Later, recently married and working as a teacher in a newly independent Nigeria, Hill assigns Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to her students, which leads to learning from them about the violent legacy of colonialism, and visiting an old slave port whose disturbing relics make her aware of her benighted American innocence. Also in Nigeria, she is given Henry James’s A Portrait of a Lady and deeply ponders her new marriage through the lens of Isabel Archer, remembering her adolescent fear that reading might be a way of avoiding experience.
 
But is it possible that the act of reading itself may be a form of ardent, transforming experience? In this memoir, Hill reflects on her literary lifetime, reminiscing about her year in northern France, where she resolutely put Flaubert’s Madame Bovary aside to discover, in Bernanos’s Diary of a Country Priest, a detailed guide to the town where she was living, a more acute perspective on the poverty and suffering hidden within its walls. She also shares a tender account of her friendship with writer Diana Trilling, whose failing sight inspired a plan to read aloud Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, an undertaking that required six years to complete.
 
From an author whose novel Still Waters in Niger was named a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times, She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons is both a wide-ranging autobiographical journey and a deeply felt appreciation of literature and its power to reflect our immediate reality and open windows onto vast new worlds.

 
 

Genres: Books About Books, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Nigeria

196 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 24, 2017

Reviews

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 3 out of 5]

RATING: 2.5 STARS
(Review Not on Blog)

I love books on books, and the idea of having a memoir that uses books as major touchstones sounded great. I am a big believer that certain books/genre come into our lives at the right time so I was intrigued with this one. Hill is a good writer, but just couldn't hold my attention. I did enjoy her thoughts on the books she discussed but the rest was just meh. I did add a new book to my TBR list so that was worth it (Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather).

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get into this book. It sounded interesting, but once I began reading, my interest waned rapidly.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exquisite memoir about the reading life, and how the act of reading itself is a form of living. The first essay alone is worth keeping this book on the shelf: an impactful music teacher, a lost chance, a childhood fear of only reading about life while it passes you by.

Hill writes about the time, immediately after graduate school and early in her marriage, when she lived a peripatetic expat life, in Nigeria and France, teaching or working with the Peace Corps. This takes place in the 1960s, and she recalls hearing about Kennedy's assassination in Nigeria. What struck me, of course, was how alien racism was to her--a white expat whose news sources largely overlooked the issue--and how concerned with it her male, African students were. She frames her time in Nigeria with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which she and her husband were teaching to their students at Igbobi College in Lagos, since it was included for the first time in their English-influenced school. Her reflections here, especially about patriotism, provided an interesting look at being in one's 20s in the 1960s, informing my own experience of being in my 20s in these turbulent years.

The final essay discusses her relationship with Diana Trilling, whom I hadn't heard of, but who was evidently Somebody in the literary world. Hill and Trilling share a fascinating relationship and inform one another well, coalescing of course around books.

I hadn't read any of the novels Hill discusses: Lucy Gayheart, Things Fall Apart, The Portrait of a Lady, Madam Bovary, Diary of a Country Priest, and In Search of Lost Time, yet I still enjoyed every essay in its own way. Her interest in each book bumped up Things Fall Apart and Diary of a Country Priest for me, but I doubt I'll add any of the other books to my list at this point, yet I shan't hold off future possibilities.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant and enlightening book recounts how novels, at certain points in her life, helped Kathleen Hill learn to negotiate the challenges of living in the world, negotiating intimate relationships and above all understanding how to translate the lessons of great literature into a principled life
At twelve years old she discovered “Lucy Gayheart” by Willa Cather at the same time as she is under the influence of the remarkable music teacher Miss Hughes. Hill conflates the book’s story with the imagined life of this teacher until she is brought face to face with reality by this teacher who magically exposes the complexity of the world as she brings her students into the world of music . It is worth reading this memoir just to experience how Miss Hughes uses Mozart’s requiem to teach these young students how to come to terms with their first encounter with tragedy and grief.
Married after a short courtship, Hill found herself teaching in Nigeria and fell in `love’ with Africa. Reading Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and discussing it with her students there brings her face to face with her own ignorance and, in a way, her complicity in the colonial project. “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James annoys her on first reading because she cannot understand Isobel’s Archer’s choice of husband. On second reading Hill reflects on her own, quite hasty marriage and how much the man she married was a product of her imagination, and, like Isabel, how time opens your eyes to the full complexity of your partner in life. The brilliance of this book is the way Hill engages you by touching on feelings and thoughts that you can identify with at a deeply personal level, but which I, for one, felt I had not explored enough. I felt inspired by her to examine more honestly and, definitely, to read more thoughtfully.
Later, now mother of two babies, she and her husband split the responsibilities of teaching and parenting. Having hoped for an assignment in sunny Provence, they find themselves in a small grey town further North in France, boarding on a farm. Emma Bovary’s restricted life immediately seems too familiar to her. Hill feels that life is passing her by, suffering “premonitions of a reality hovering just beyond reach.”
This not a negative book because with each exploration of a novel she finds a way forward and finds a level of reassurance in the realization that she increasingly understands herself and her life better. What’s more, the dilemmas she addresses through her reading have a universal appeal – how do you maintain a long-term relationship as you both evolve over time? How do you find a way to understand the lives and culture of others when you are an outsider?
The last section of this memoir will really strike home if you, like me, find it hard to select the next book to read after reading one that so thoroughly engrossed you that while reading it you were transported into its world. Over six years Hill read Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past” to the ineffably wise writer and critic Diana Trilling who could no longer see to read. When the last lines had been read and they found the task of choosing their next book upsetting, starting then rejecting several seemingly worthy choices they felt “restless, easily dissatisfied” asking themselves, “Was it because we would have felt ourselves disloyal to have fallen

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won a free copy of this book from an author giveaway, this did not influence my review.

Three and a half stars.

I loved the concept of this book and it made me recall some of the novels that have stuck with me over the years, however, I don't think I could have drawn so many clear parallels between novels and my own life. This is an incredibly thoughtful memoir told through the perspective of six novels (and a short introduction tied to a Dickinson poem). I worried that I might not relate to some of the sections as I haven't read many of the books that Hill ties to her own life, but she provides enough synopses and quotes that readers don't need any previous knowledge of the novels she discusses. That said, I don't enjoy Henry James and didn't connect with the chapter related to The Portrait of a Lady, either. I found the parallels between James' novel and Hill's life weren't as strong as the others but I'm sure my dislike of James influenced my enjoyment of this chapter.

While the chapters wouldn't all function as stand alone essays, this also isn't a memoir of Hill's entire life. She Read to Us in The Late Afternoons reads more as a memoir in snapshots. I enjoyed the book overall, though I found Hill's writing obtuse at times and had to read some passages more than once. There is a formality and density to her writing that made this a slow read for me, but I enjoyed this unique approach to a memoir.

[Maha · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I was attracted by Hill’s writing style and enjoyed the tales of her experiences living in Nigeria and France. However, I found it frustrating for a while that she referred to her husband as “C.” and never gave names to the children she bore. I got over this as I focused on her introspection and comments on the different stages of her life. All culminates in the last major section of her book, as she spends time reading to a dear, ageing friend. Their discussions and commentary about reading Proust (for instance) helps them become closer and gives them precious time together to reassess their lives and experiences. Full of profound, enduring statements that I found myself taking the time to ponder and consider in depth, writing my own reflections as I meandered through Hill’s wonderful prose at a slower pace than usual.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to read this book as I had read both of Hill's previous fine novels, STILL WATERS IN NIGER and WHO OWNS THIS HOUSE, both poetic and reflective novels. Hill's title could read as a life WITH novels, as much as it a life IN novels. Her partial memoir comments about what she was actually doing as she was reading the six novels that she discusses, Willa Cather's LUCY GRAYHEART, Chinua Achebe's THINGS FALL APART, Henry James' PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Gustave Flaubert's MADAME BOVARY, Georges Bernanos' DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, and Marcel Proust's A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU.

A central question for Hill is whether reading leads away from life or toward it? It was first broached by a early teacher who read to Hill's class ( from this section comes the title of the book). "Life will not spare you, boys and girls, Miss Hughes had told us. It spares no one." The question emerges again while she is reading Henry James, no doubt thinking of her marriage, and how difficult it is to describe a marriage when it is in progress. There is too much flux, too much shifting of moods and circumstances; it is only possible with a separation or death. This can be best be seen with James' Isabel Archer who is most clearly drawn when she has separated from one of her suitors. At the end she is married to Osmond, but much beyond that James doesn't venture. In this instance reading only leads to more questions.

In DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, read while Hill was teaching English in a damp provincial town in the north of France, she identifies with the struggling priest who says at the beginning of the novel, "My parish is bored stiff. No other word for it." Her comment: "Boredom, it occurred to me, is suffering taken for granted, a disguise for hopelessness." But she was only in this town for a year, Bernanos' priest died in his small town parish. Among last words of the priest's diary are the words, "True grace is to forget." To forget oneself is to cease to be bored, and it is only when she leaves France for the United States does Hill begin to appreciate aspects of this small town, ones she had been unable to see while she was there.

Obliquely, that is the case with Madame Bovary who desperately wanted to escape the confines of her provincial environment. True, her escape destination turned out to be worse than where she started from, but her impulse is recognizable; journeys at their best should provoke explorations of what otherwise can potential sterile and bored lives.

Finally, there is the great exploration of the past, and how it influences us in the present written by Proust. Hill read Proust aloud to her friend Diane Trilling whose eyesight was failing in her old age. It took six years of daily reading (I don't know how long each reading lasted) to finish it, and along the way she and Trilling talked about Proust, and life, which in most cases is far too fluid and mysterious to fully make sense of. But reading makes it more involving and interesting, even if it fails finally to dispel the mysteries.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful memoir Kathleen's life marked by the books she read the memories they bring.A book for all readers who treasure special books that marked moments in our life .Thanks to Net Galley for advance copy for honest review,

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written memoir focused on key times in the author's life and the books that illuminated and spoke to her.

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kathleen Hill's memoir, She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons: A Life in Novels, was an interesting read, but she stretches her theme to breaking in places.

On the one hand, it's a memoir of her early years (childhood, early marriage, teaching in Nigeria and France with her new husband). But then she jumps ahead 30 years for another interlude in her life. In this scenario, the last chapter seems out of place. She tries to tie it in to the earlier chapters, but it didn't really work well. I would have almost preferred a book on it's own about her relationship with Diana Trilling and the years she spent going over and reading Proust to the older woman as Diana went blind. It felt like there was a lot more material to be uncovered there.

Then there's the fact that each chapter is built around (and named after) a novel she was reading at the time, and how she looked at her life through the lens of the book. But based on that, the first chapter set in Nigeria really had to labour to make that connection. This is also the only chapter based on a black (and African) writer. Where every other chapter goes into enough detail about the book it is centered on that I don't think I need to read the book in question at all, the chapter 'Things Fall Apart' (by Chinua Achebe) spends at most two paragraphs on the book, and then just details thing that happened to her. Sure, there's elements like her visiting a museum about slavery, or her students reacting to the assassination of JFK, but the other chapters included long passages of decribing plot elements in the book she was reading, and how she interpreted that into her own life. It felt rather like she had used this book because she felt guilty about not including an African writer when she spent so long on her early married life in Nigeria.

So, while I enjoyed the reading, it did feel like two loosely connected books were put together because neither was quite long enough on their own.

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons
A Life in Novels
by Hill, Kathleen
Open Road Integrated Media
Biographies & Memoirs
I am reviewing a copy of She Read to Us In Late Afternoons through Open Road Integrated Media and Netgalley:
Books have a way of shiping is, in a way defining who we become. Kathleen Hill highlights the books she read while in Nigeria and France as well as at her home in New York talking about the impact each book had on her life at the various points in her life.
Books like Things Fall Apart, Beyond the Fringe, Goodbye to All That, The Palm Wine Drinkard, Out of Africa, The Heart Of the Matter, The African Child and A Passage To India were read on late afternoons as the season of rain was coming to an end.
She read Madame Bovary while in France alone taking care of her crying children, she would sneak moments of reading in.
On a drizzly Saturday afternoon one December Kathleen Hill picked up The Diary of A Country Priest and began reading.
Hill talks about getting lost in the pages of A Portrait Of A Lady, growing to understand the main character more and more as she spent longer periods of time lost in its pages
Kathleen read to herself and to a friend whose eyesight had been deteriorating for years, she read to her children.
Hill Read in memory of those she lost, friends and loved one, she read for entertainment, but deeper than that she read for understanding.

She Read to Us In Late Afternoons reminds us of the power of books, the impact of the written word on our lives. It reminds us that the books we read have an impact on us.
I give She Read to Us in Late Afternoons five out of five stars!
Happy Reading!


[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite subject for a novel. This book is a memoir by a teacher who remembers her life through novels. The first book is by Wilma Cather, Lucy Gayheart; the second one is when she got married and went with husband to teach in Nigeria; She introduces Nigeria after it became its own country--she uses Things Fall Apart by China Achebe. After Nigeria, she and her husband team taught in Avesnes, a small French town near Belgium--she used Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, then Madame Bovary by . Then she used Diary of a Country Priest by George Bernanos, and finishes with Proust's novels, In Search of Lost Time, when she meet and read Proust outloud to Diana Trilling.There are many other books that she read that she mentions when she was teaching and raising their three girls. I borrowed this book from our local library, but bought a copy for a friend who is working in Nigeria. I thought chapter two when Kathleen Hill wrote about their experience is a new country, Nigeria. Several of the books she mentioned I have read, but there are more that I haven't. Look forward to reading them.

[Kate Brandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir speaks of the deepest of things in a graceful, unselfconscious way. It is the best kind of memoir--the kind that renders experience in order to reflect on it, and to give the reader a chance to follow the writer's mind. What is exceptional about this memoir is its pursuit of moral insight. The use of different novels as mirrors for different phases of a life opens doors into the narrator's inner experiences as she marries, travels, has children, teaches, and reflects. Here, the inner lives that we so seldom share with one another are revealed through Hill's reflections on the lessons and insights into the books that she reads, and her use of them to illuminate truths that often life dormant.

What I found most moving was Hill's account of teaching in Africa, seeing the racism of her home country, the U.S., through the eyes of her students, and being horrified. While many of us travel for entertainment, Hill travels with an open heart and open mind. She wishes truly to commune with the people she meets, and this desire to truly know others, together with her humility, brings us to new places.

Read this one. You will be richer for it.

[Sharlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gem of a little book composed of essays written over many years by the author. As a young girl she reads Willa Cather's Lucy Grayheart (my favorite essay) preparing her for a shocking death. We find the author & husband teaching English as a second language where she reads her students Things Fall Apart & learns from her students as much or more than she teaches them. The book concludes with the author sharing a six year period in which she read Proust to author Diana Trilling whose eyesight was failing. A quick read for all who love reading.

[Jonathan Vatner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored Kathleen Hill's memoir -- which is not surprising, because I also happen to adore Kathleen. There are no big twists or horrific losses in this life, just moments exquisitely felt and communicated. Her idol is Proust, and she organizes her history like Proust, retrieving moments that might have passed another by but that stuck with her forever. She regrets and cherishes these moments in the same breath, and they inform her way of being in the world.
I think any artist, anyone who makes a life of delving into experience, would do well to read this book.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hill's memoir begins with the well known question- that if you spend all your free time reading, are you missing out on life? Are you avoiding participation in your own life? I know that is how I feel, but Hill is reassuring in her premise that often the books you read enhance your life. She highlights appropriate classic examples such as Portrait of a Lady, Things Fall Apart, and the entire Proust cycle, and how these books were available for her at the right time, enriching her thoughts. An interesting look at how we read.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each chapter or section in this book is a different essay in which the author explores part of her life through a novel she was reading at the time. I found some of the essays to be more compelling than others--for example, the author explores her young marriage during the time when she was reading The Portrait of a Lady, and it was fascinating. Other chapters were not as successful, like the one in which she reads Diary of a Country Priest while living in France. On the whole I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

[Angela Schaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a charming memoir - well written and insightful. I think my enjoyment was heightened by my literary degree, as I read or recognized the classic works she weaved into her memories. I have never read Proust, though. While I still enjoyed this section, I've now added another book to my TBR list and may revisit Hill's memoir after navigating Proust. I think literature lovers will relish this book - but I might recommend a reading or refresher, if necessary, on Things Fall Apart, Portrait of a Lady, and Madame Bovary.

[Kate Belt · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars really for this beautifully written, introspective memoir. Newly married in 1963, Hill and her husband move to Nigeria to teach English to English and Nigerian students at Igbodi College. They later join the Peace Corps and teach in a small French town. As a reader, she worries about whether she spends too much of her life in books, while using the themes in stories to examine her own life.

[Christie Grotheim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathleen Hill's writing is exquisite and I could not have picked up the novel at a better time, when I too was going through many life changes—moving from NYC to Nashville. I loved seeing snippets of Kathleen's life as they tied into the books she was reading, and I appreciated her sharp observations. I found the section about her music teacher especially powerful and the book as a whole was very moving. Highly recommend!

[Rachel Aydt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathleen Hill has written a beautiful book excavating her life-long relationship to reading, travel, and friends, near and far. This is a poignant memoir that will resonate with any lover of fiction. How does our life weave around the stories we surround ourselves with? What impact do the stories have on our relationships, and how we see them? I loved this book.

[Samantha Mix · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this memoir. I learned a lot about France and Nigeria, and what life was like there in the mid-20th century. While I had not read any of the novels Kathleen referenced in the book, I now need to! I love how she relates life to books she had read, as many devoted readers do. I felt like I could relate to her in that sense. Thank you for sharing your story, Kathleen!

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kathleen Hill writes a good memoir. The work was engaging and interesting. I also have books that are intertwined with personal events, so I 'get' the concept. The two best parts of the book are about her school music teacher, Miss Hughes, and the author's friendship with Diana Trilling. It was interesting to read about 1960s expat life in Nigeria and rural northern France.

[Jody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first and last chapters, but the rest of the book was just OK. I felt the author struggled to make her points and it was most unfortunate that this book did not inspire me to read any of the ones that touched her life enough to include.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but I was left feeling like I needed more. The idea was wonderful - a story about how certain book affect you at certain points in your life. Yet somehow, I just felt that something was missing.

[Nancy Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriquing view of how reading books can reflect the life you lead. I truly felt like I was having a one-on-one conversation with the author and how books played such a consuming role in her life. I especially loved the first chapter. It was written beautifully.

[Reading with Cats · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bittersweet memoir dealing with the intersection of books and life. I particularly liked the last chapter and the Achebe chapter of expat life in Africa.

[Corinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book starts out strong, it bogs down about 1//3 of the way through. It doesn't live up to promise seen in the early pages.