The Light of Evening is a story of attachments, the attachment to
land and especially the attachment between mother and daughter,
who yearn for closeness but are also estranged.

From her hospital bed in Dublin, the elderly Dilly awaits the visit
of her daughter, Eleanora, from London. The epochs of her life pass
before her: emigration to America in the 1920s, a romantic liaison,
and the destiny that brought her back to Ireland and marriage into the
formerly grand property called Rusheen. She also retraces Eleanora"s
precipitate marriage to a foreigner, which alienated mother and daughter
even more, and Dilly"s heart-rending letters sent over the years in
a determination to reclaim her daughter. But Eleanora"s visit does
not prove to be the glad reunion Dilly prayed for. And in her hasty
departure, Eleanora leaves behind a secret journal of their stormy
relationship—a revelation that brings the novel to a shocking close.

The Light of Evening is a novel of dreams and betrayals, but at its
core is the realization that the bond between mother and child is
unbreakable, stronger even than death. With its loving evocation of
the Irish landscape, its cinematic portrait of New York in the 1920s as
seen through the eyes of an immigrant, and its central mother-daughter
relationship, it is certain to bring this daring writer her widest
audience yet.