In this quiet and contemplative book the author explores the topics of imprisonment and freedom while interweaving the story with bird-watching. Both James Hunter, a young British pilot shot down in Germany during World War II and imprisoned as a POW, and his lonely wife, Rose, find solace during wartime. As the war comes to an end and perhaps the return of happiness, both characters find that they long for the wartime years. The author’s love of nature in the British landscape is an added bonus. Many of the scenes are set in Ashdown Forest, the enchanted home of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin.
“Scintillating…What Humphreys does so well, in beautiful, precise prose, is convey the shock of that violence, how it rends the everyday. I am very glad to have spent some of my moments on earth reading The Evening Chorus. I reached the end with a sense of wonder that so much life and pain and beauty could be contained in so few pages.”
—The Boston Globe
“Humphreys (Nocturne, 2013, etc.) offers a heartbreaking yet redemptive story about loss and survival…Humphreys deserves more recognition for the emotional intensity and evocative lyricism of her seemingly straightforward prose and for her ability to quietly squirrel her way into the reader’s heart.”—Kirkus, starred review
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