Evening. Nessa Rapoport

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      Praise for House on the River

      “We see an imaginary hand reach out from Rapoport’s talent to try to grab a feeling that shimmers, just beyond reach as we get older. The river, long afternoons, the dock, a book. Summer.”

      —SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS,

      Los Angeles Times Book Review

      “Nessa Rapoport writes like a poet, muses like a philosopher, and loves like the mother (and daughter and granddaughter) that she is. House on the River is about family but also much more. It is a startlingly original work, as intricate as a jewel and as vast as a library full of your favorite books.”

      —STEPHEN J. DUBNER, author of Turbulent Souls and

      Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper

      “I have never read such a luminous meditation on a private journey. Nessa Rapoport writes about her family in spare, vibrant, poetic prose. I am moved by the layers of meaning as they weave in and out like fine music. This is memoir as prayer.”

      —ELIZABETH SWADOS, composer and playwright of

      Runaways and Alice in Concert

      “Nessa Rapoport’s beautiful book is about everything important: the enchantment of childhood, the passion of adolescence, the longing to return to a world one dreamed of escaping, the way the physical realm passes into the imaginary realm, and the way our dreams become incarnate in the new families we make. I can’t imagine a lovelier figure for all this than a houseboat loaded with children, parents, siblings, dreams of the past, and hope for the future.”

      —JONATHAN ROSEN, author of

      Eve’s Apple and The Talmud and the Internet

      Praise for A Woman’s Book of Grieving

      “A work of redemptive passion, this is highly recommended for all libraries.”

      —ELISE CHASE, Library Journal

      “Rapoport’s lyrical reflections, poetry, lamentations, and thoughtful reminiscences are highly charged, each word so perfectly chosen, each emotion so powerfully drawn.”

      —Booklist

      “[A] finely articulated message of renewal and healing.”

      —Publishers Weekly

      Praise for Preparing for Sabbath

      BOOKS IN CANADA FIRST NOVEL AWARD SHORT-LIST

      “The story of a young woman’s quest to find both love and God . . . A novel by a talented new writer.”

      —Los Angeles Times

      “Intense, emotional, often poetic, the book catches and holds the reader.”

      —Milwaukee Journal

      “The story of a young Jew’s search for spiritual meaning has been written before, but not from a woman’s point of view. An incisive, lyrical novel.”

      —Flare

      “A warm, wise novel suffused with the blue radiance of yearning.”

      —AMOS OZ, author of A Tale of Love and Darkness

      EVENING

      ALSO BY NESSA RAPOPORT

      House on the River: A Summer Journey

      A Woman’s Book of Grieving

      Preparing for Sabbath

      The Schocken Book of Contemporary Jewish Fiction

      (co-editor, with Ted Solotaroff)

      COUNTERPOINT

      BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

      EVENING

      A novel

      NESSA

      RAPOPORT

      EVENING

      Copyright © 2020 by Nessa Rapoport

      First hardcover edition: 2020

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Rapoport, Nessa, author.

      Title: Evening : a novel / Nessa Rapoport.

      Description: First hardcover edition. | Berkeley, California : Counterpoint Press, 2020.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2020000291 | ISBN 9781640094086 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781640094093 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Domestic fiction.

      Classification: LCC PS3568.A627 E94 2020 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000291

      Jacket design by Nicole Caputo

      Book design by Wah-Ming Chang

      COUNTERPOINT

      2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

      Berkeley, CA 94710

       www.counterpointpress.com

      Printed in the United States of America

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      For Tobi and our children

      For Lisa, Mimi, and Liz, z”l

      And for all whose love sustained me and brought me to this day

FIRST

      ONE

      ONE LOVES, THE OTHER IS LOVED: SO NANA TAUGHT us. I look at the beautiful bones of her face and speculate about this pronouncement. My grandmother has always been beloved, and so my grandfather, long dead, assumes a peculiar poignancy. Once, in some rapturous, unimaginable youth before she married, Nana was the ardent lover. But no one is alive to tell us about the object of her affection, and she will not disclose his name.

      We are sitting in the living room of my mother’s house, waiting for СКАЧАТЬ