Even Now

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Synopsis

When her husband Hal accepts a teaching position at a private school in the tiny North Carolina town of Rural Ridge, Hannah Marsh views her family's move as a chance to return to a simpler, sweeter way of living. Contentedly married for seventeen years, and the mother of two children, she nevertheless has a nagging sense that something is absent from her life. Then, at a casual neighborhood dinner, Hannah encounters someone she believed she'd never see again: Daintry O'Connor, a ghost from her girlhood.

As children, Hannah adored and idolized the more worldly, daring Daintry, even envying Daintry's adoption into a large and lively Irish family. She believed, as they'd fervently promised each other, that they would be Best Friends Forever. But forever ended abruptly, leaving behind feelings of abandonment, betrayal, anger, and too many unanswered questions. Now, suddenly confronted with the adult Daintry -- a successful, stylish investment banker married to an Episcopal priest -- Hannah feels the old wounds painfully reopening.

As the two women become part of the daily life of the mountain village, Hannah struggles to understand why Daintry still exerts an extraordinary hold on her . . . even as she finds herself dangerously drawn to Daintry's husband, Peter. When Peter makes it clear that he shares the attraction, a chain of events is set in motion that will affect them all.

Even Now portrays a friendship rooted in childhood yet eroded in adulthood. It examines the crimes for which we hold those we love liable, the choices that are given or required of us, and the consequences and accountability involved in each. A novel that explores the elusive mysteries of faith, memory, and trust, Even Now asks whether a relationship can survive changes -- and the changing perspectives of time.

Questions for Susan

What was your inspiration in writing Even Now? Is the inspiration for this book based on your own experiences or the experiences of anyone you know?
I was interested in depicting the darker aspects of friendship between women: competition, jealousy, exclusion, accountability. These issues begin on the playground and continue into adulthood. Some women never escape them. I didn't have a particular "Daintry" in my life, but she represents every charismatic girl who had something you wanted, or was someone you longed to be. (I gave her everything I lusted after as a child - long hair, bunk beds, a lazy Susan, an older sister who knew everything, and a mother who let her do anything.) So often, there's a later feeling of self-loathing, that you needed her so, which can generate the desire for revenge. Daintry has generated a lot of discussion among readers. To the people who say to me, "I didn't have a Daintry in my life," I say, "Then you probably were one."

Do you feel a particular attachment to any one character in your novel? Would you consider including any of them in future novels?
As a married mother of three, I identify most closely with Hannah. She's suffering from what I call "Just a Mother Syndrome," questioning her role, her regrets, her worth. ("Me? Oh, I'm just a mother.") But while Hannah is the more sympathetic character, she isn't wholly innocent. Neither is Daintry entirely guilty. It's very important to me that Hannah and Daintry are understood as both victim and villain. I've written a sequel titled COME TO THIS in which Pril and Ruth, the intimate friends from How Close We Come are reunited, but the friendship between Hannah and Daintry is over. That complete severence permits Hannah to reconcile, put the past behind her, and mature in a new way.

How long did it take to write Even Now? Did it come faster than How Close We Come?
I wrote How Close We Come literally in about three months. That fast. Even Now, in its entirety, took about two years. Generally it takes me about eighteen months to write a novel (though I may have been thinking about it, or taking notes on it, for years before that.) My publisher purchased Even Now in a quite different guise, after asking my agent, "How open is Susan to changes?" The "changes" took another eighteen months of back-and-forthing. Another story in itself! Initially, the novel was titled "Interim."

Was Hannah and Daintry's childhood relationship based on anyone you knew?
No. Everyone wants to know this, and it's a logical question, one that comes with the territory of writing first-person fiction. Daintry's a composite, like all my characters. She represents any woman in any woman's life whom she envied or imitated. She is confidante and mentor and nemesis. She represents any woman who is so certain of herself that you yourself begin questioning the choices you've made (and up to now, been content with) for your life. Even Now is both apology and eulogy. Apology to friends I somehow hurt, or intimidated, or lorded over, however unconsciously. In those respects Daintry is me. And eulogy for those friendships that died for reasons beyond my control, or that I let lapse with inattention. I don't view Daintry as evil. Hannah's last line, after all, speaks of an ongoing love for her, "even now." We're all victims, and all villains, we females. We hurt each other.

What about the quotes? Did you keep a quote book?
I'm a quote freak. The bulletin board at my writing desk is covered with them, from A. A. Milne to the Bible, including Faulkner's "If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the `Ode To A Grecian Urn` is worth any number of old ladies." Like Hannah, I did have a quote book all through high school and college, and I laugh now at the incredible number of song lyrics I wrote down! Unlike Hannah, though, I wouldn't dream of discarding it.

Susan's Questions for Reading Groups

I maintain that "Every woman has a Daintry in her life. If she doesn't, she probably was a Daintry." What does that statement mean?
The ways in which adolescent girls are vicious to one another is a topic that's receiving a lot of attention. But female "meanness" isn't limited to teenagers. How are both Daintry and Hannah intentionally and unintentionally "mean" to one another, in both their past and present lives?
The original title for Even Now was "Interim." How does the original title fit the story? And as with How Close We Come, the title Even Now has several interpretations relating to the story. What are they?
I believe that Hannah's sister Ceel functions as "the conscience" of the story. How?
The quote before Chapter 9 reads, Not happiness, but intensity, was what she craved. What does that line mean, for Hannah?
The term "mid-life crisis" has nearly become a cliché. Is Hannah having a mid-life crisis? If so, what are its causes? Is it resolved?
When asked about the genre of my novels, I reply that I write "domestic realism." When asked what I write about, I always say, "necessary sadness." What is necessary sadness?
Daintry is a villain, but she's also a victim. How? The same statement applies to Hannah. How?
Though its narrator is several decades past adolescence, Even Now is in many ways a coming-of-age novel. What are the elements of a coming-of-age novel, and how does Even Now fit that description?

Publicity & Reviews

“…an appealing, rueful, lost-illusions tale” —Kirkus Reviews

“Skillfully pinpointing the circumstances that tempt Hannah Marsh into an affair with her childhood friend's husband, Kelly (How Close We Come) showcases her perceptive understanding of the delicate fabric of human relationships. Hannah and her husband, Hal, have recently moved to the small town of Rural Ridge, N. C., to give their two children a taste of country life. Hal has taken a teaching position at a private school and Hannah is looking forward to concentrating on her gardening; their marriage is settled and comfortable. Imagine Hannah's surprise when she meets Peter Whicker, an attractive man who turns out not only to be the town's newest member of the clergy, but also the spouse of her childhood best friend and current nemesis, Daintry O'Connor. As Hannah looks into her past, reflecting on her friendship with Daintry, Kelly adroitly moves the narrative forward, sizing each woman up against her younger self. The fascinating transformation of Daintry from a youthful, bold instigator and confidant to a sophisticated charmer with scathing wit and a sarcastic bent underscores the complexity of their friendship. As the attraction between Peter and Hannah blossoms, it becomes plain that the enviable qualities of a long-standing marriage reliability, comfort, mutual understanding and trust may undermine it as well. In determining the course of her future, Hannah is forced to examine her past with Daintry and the impact their long and complicated relationship continues to have on her life. By examining the push/pull of friendship and the intricacies of family, this rather simple tale acquires additional layers of meaning and relevance.” —Publishers Weekly

The Painful Power of Friendship

By Sarah Dessen

Most coming-of-age novels are about adolescents, as if once one is past the age of 18, all the growing up is done. The real truth, however, is that becoming an adult often takes a lot longer.

In her engaging second novel, Even Now, Greensboro writer Susan S. Kelly tells the story of Hannah Marsh, a married mother of two who finds herself having to learn this lesson the hard way. Hannahs childhood best friend was Daintry O’Connor, who lived across the street in a house, and a world, miles away from the stuffy, controlling life Hannah had always known. For Hannah, Daintry was more teacher than comrade, introducing her to everything from the way to wear knee socks to the basics of sex education. Hannah, shy and quiet, was happy to be pulled along in Daintry’s noisy wake, competing with and submitting to her will and whim. It was an unbalanced friendship, one that only could work well when Hannah was in an inferior role, needing Daintry to define herself. Hannah’s mother, seeing this, sent her daughter away, to boarding school, for her own good.

In the years following, the friendship faltered, due to differences in experiences, the passage of time, and the other kinds of unknown variables that cause people once closer than sisters to lose each other. For Hannah now, memories of Daintry are tightly interwoven with her recollection of childhood, as if in losing her best friend she also gave away some part of herself, and her history. Over time, it has become easy for her to be nostalgic about their friendship, and forget the person she had to be in order for it to survive.

When she and her husband move to a new town to make a fresh start and find Daintry there, Hannah hopes that these breaks can be mended. What she discovers, however, is that sometimes in putting the pieces of something back together we discover it was never truly whole in the first place. Kelly uses her setting, a small town in the North Carolina mountains, to the fullest, layering Hannah’s story with detail about church doings and gossip, the trials and tribulations of raising children, and the way that the seasons and gardens reflect the dynamics of the world in which we live. When Hannah is asked to work on the columbarium of her new church, she finds herself drawn to the pastor, who also happens to be Daintry’s husband. What follows is a flirtation that she cannot fully explain, one that calls into question not only her faithe and her devotion to her family, but also the exact motivation for the attraction. What is her own need, and what is the need to show Daintry she isn’t under her spell any longer?

The strength in Kelly’s writing is in the way she is able to fold Hannah’s recollections into her present situation, so that the childhood memories are as vivid, if not more so, than the contemporary story that unfolds. At times it is hard for the reader to understand Daintry’s appeal: As an adult, she seems shifty and cold, and one is hard pressed to figure out how Hannah didn’t see it earlier. Still, the depth of detail pulls us into Hannah’s world, and we question these things less and less as the story works toward its strong, and resonating, conclusion.

In the end, the story comes full circle as Hannah realizes that what she really has been battling all this time is some form of her own past. However enthralled she might have been with Daintry then, and hurt by the loss of their friendship, Hannah realizes the true challenge is separating herself not only from those memories, but from what she herself was then: weak rather than strong, cowed rather than courageous.

And it is in learning this that a girl does grow up, coming to an age when the kind of woman she is is her own choice, tied not to her past or those within it, but to the future, and how she gets there.

Reprinted with permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina