A plainspoken novel, but one with intensely lyrical moments, about the devastation of the West Virginia landscape—and the devastation to the local communities—owing to mountaintop removal... Sickels has great insight into the emotional life of West Virginians, and he refreshingly presents them as fully realized characters.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Sickels's debut revolves around a cast of characters whose world is pulled out from under them... The novel is grounded in rich storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly
“Cole's point of view is one not often encountered in contemporary fiction. First-time novelist Sickels paints [his] experience with an unflinching hand.” —Library Journal
“In this stark, beautiful debut, Sickels writes with gentle grace and cutting honesty about characters as wounded as the condemned land on which they live. The Evening Hour is a raw, aching book that gleams with moments of unflinching truth and unexpected tenderness, casting light into dark corners, revealing both damage and dignity. It's a stunning novel.” —Aryn Kyle, author of The God of Animals and Boys and Girls Like You and Me
“The troubled heart of the country, and the hearts of the deeply compelling people who populate it, beat strongly and unforgettably in The Evening Hour. Carter Sickels is a tremendous novelist with a tremendous story to tell in these pages, and he tells it with beauty and power.” —Stacey D'Erasmo, author of The Sky Below
“The Evening Hour could be a hymn sung out in a country church; when I finished it, I wanted to close my eyes, listen to its echoes, feel the power of its song. For that is what this beautiful book is: a sweet-souled, hard-eyed prayer for a beleaguered people and the beloved landscape they call home. With striking authenticity and admirable restraint, Carter Sickels brings both forcefully to life in his deeply moving, spiritually uplifting debut.” —Josh Weil, author of The New Valley
“The Evening Hour is engrossing. It elicits strong, complicated emotions from the first page. I felt inhabited by the characters, and as the page numbers increased, I was as scared for it to end as I was to see what would happen.” —Nick Reding, author of Methland
“A refreshing cry from the populace, Carter Sickels's The Evening Hour captures the spirit of America's New Feudalism. The setting is West Virginia and Heritage Coal has a monopoly: on the land, on the lives of the people who work for them, and on the families who live downhill from the toxic sludge pond. Life is hell and survival is all there is. Some have the Bible, some have booze and pills and sex, and some still dare to have a dream.” —Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon
A plainspoken novel, but one with intensely lyrical moments, about the devastation of the West Virginia landscape--and the devastation to the local communities--owing to mountaintop removal. Cole Freeman is making it, but just barely. He works as an aide in a nursing home but supplements his meager income with the more lucrative trade of selling prescription drugs he either steals or buys off of the local elderly population. (In the small hollers of rural West Virginia, there's plenty of demand for escape.) Cole is to some extent a victim of his grandfather's Pentecostal religion, for this patriarch divides humanity into two types: the saved and the damned. Cole's mother, Ruby, was consigned to the latter category, as her father labeled her a slut for her unredeemable "whorish" ways. For 17 years she was absent from Cole's life but returns when Cole is 27. Cole has had an off-again/on-again relationship with the wild and tattooed Charlotte, but he's more interested in Lacy, a waitress at the Wigwam restaurant who lives an upright life and is morally committed to fight the depredations of the Heritage Coal Company, whose construction of a sludge dam threatens several of the communities along the creeks and streams. Cole's life is further complicated by the reappearance of Terry Rose, a childhood friend with whom he used to get drunk and stoned. Terry's idea of entrepreneurship is to cook meth, but this activity gets him both in trouble and in debt. Cole would like to change his life--to get out of the drug business, get a nursing degree and perhaps settle down with Lacy--but he feels tied down by circumstances that resist transformation. Sickels has great insight into the emotional life of West Virginians, and he refreshingly presents them as fully realized characters rather than as clichés or stereotypes.
