REVIEW: EVERGREEN, BY REBECCA RASMUSSEN

 

They were two people wanting a quiet life. So when Emil and Eveline moved to Evergreen, Minnesota, to start their married life together, they were prepared for the challenges of living in the forest. But what would separate them and keep them apart for too long would come unexpectedly and would change everything. Their story began in 1938.

After the birth of their son Hux came the news of Emil’s father’s illness. Emil’s departure to Germany would come at a time when wars were heating up, and leaving Germany would become an impossibility. Time passed, and while her husband was away, Eveline somehow managed, with the help of neighbors.

Until one day when a visitor came and took from Eveline something that would leave her powerless to change the consequences.

After an untenable decision changes lives, the story leaps ahead to 1954…and then again to 1961, with Hux an adult seeking his lost sister Naamah. In the end, the year is 1972, and while many separations have come and gone, there is a bond that links them all.

What happened to them all is revealed through the pages in a tale that sweeps across time and generations.

The emotional impact of Eveline’s decision would have an effect on all of their lives, but the reader only sees the after-effects in others. Without a look into her mind and heart, or seeing how Emil reacted to what she’d done left me struggling to make sense of the missing pieces of Emil and Eveline’s story. Leaping ahead across time left this reader with a disjointed feeling. A sad feeling of missed opportunities for healing. But then, finally, as Evergreen: A novel drew to a close, there was one recurring theme: mothers and children, separated, could be reunited, as if the past no longer defined them. 4.0 stars.