Discussion Leader: Ellen Getreu
Her father and aunt lovingly raise Eva McEwen, whose
mother has died in childbirth. Eva has two ghosts, a girl
and a woman, whom she calls “the companions” that only
she can see. Though the “companions” are there more for
her protection than to cause harm, they also seem to be
able to manipulate a variety of events in her life.
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Reviews from the NovelistPlus database:
- BookList:
- Eva McEwen is the engaging central character in Livesey’s newest novel, set in Scotland in the early 1900s. Eva draws her first breath as her mother’s life ebbs away under the strain of a laborious birth. Raised by her father and the practical Aunt Lily, Eva grows to be quite a respectable woman, but throughout her life she keeps a closely guarded secret about the “companions” who come and go in her life at their leisure. These specters most commonly take the form of a woman and a young girl, and they can be helpful as well as mischievous, often underhandedly manipulating events in Eva’s life. Eva’s undaunted tolerance of these apparitions and their activities is tinged with a subtle humor, but with the added melancholic flavor of a lonely girl who cannot be fearful of entities whose realm is also home to her departed mother. An enjoyable read that explores the esoteric essence of life, death, and undying love. (Reviewed July 1, 2001) -- Elsa Gaztambide
- Publishers Weekly:
- /* Starred Review */ After Criminals and The Missing World , it should be no surprise that the immensely talented Livesey continues to juxtapose strange events with mundane daily activities, sending a jolt through her ordinary characters and settings. The wonder is that she can draw readers into her world so gently that the barriers between reality and the fantastic quickly fall. The first time the narrator Eva McEwen sees her "companions" she is six, and living near the Scottish town of Troon with her middle-aged father and her aunt, who came to raise Eva after her mother died in childbed. Though much loved, Eva is lonely, and when a woman who "shone as if she had been dipped in silver" and a young girl with long braids and freckles appear one afternoon in the garden, she is at first unaware that they are not corporeal. The companions, as she comes to call them, are not visible to others, however, and their purpose in her life seems unclear. Twice they save her from fatal harm; twice they destroy a romance; often they are comforting; sometimes they signal their presence by moving furniture. Eva works as a nurse in a Glasgow infirmary during WWII, but the burden of her secret keeps her from achieving intimacy with anyone. When she does confide in a man she loves, a brilliant surgeon, heartbreak ensues. She seeks solace in her mother's native village of Glenaird, where she marries and has a daughter. But in a poignant denouement, the significance of the companions is made clear. With remarkable control, Livesey presents the companions in matter-of-fact detail, eschewing frissons of horror and providing a lucid explanation of their presence. Her restraint and delicacy, and the reader's identification with the appealing Eva, result in a haunting drama. Agent, Amanda Urban. (Sept.) Forecast: An author tour and strong word of mouth should spark this novel's sales. Every mother who yearns to protect her child will relate to Eva and react emotionally to Livesey's moving story. --Staff (Reviewed July 30, 2001) (Publishers Weekly, vol 248, issue 31, p57)
- Library Journal:
- (The following is a combined review for TRYST; POLLY'S GHOST; and EVA MOVES THE FURNITURE) The ghost story as romance has no better example than (o.p.), in which Hilary, a British soldier killed in battle, falls in love with Sabrina, the young bookish woman who comes to live in his house with her professor father and spinster aunt. Get out your hankies when you near the end. The mainstreaming of ghost stories can further be seen in the novels of several contemporary writers, leading perhaps to a new subgenre, the domestic ghost story. is the story of Polly Baymiller's attempt—even after her death from giving birth to her seventh child, Tip—to cherish and comfort him in the midst of loneliness, sorrow, and the pains of everyday life. Another mother who yearns to be part of her child's life from beyond the grave is found in . Eva McEwen first sees the woman and child ("the companions") when she is a child and well before she realizes that no one else can see them. The role that these two (ghosts?) play in Eva's life varies between a benevolent protectiveness and occasional hurtfulness. Livesey has many cards up her sleeve, and it's not until the very end that the reader (and Eva) understands what part the pair play in Eva's life. --Nancy Pearl (Reviewed October 15, 2002) (Library Journal, vol 127, issue 17, p120)
- Kirkus:
- /* Starred Review */ A haunting and haunted fourth novel from Livesey (The Missing World, 2000, etc.), this about a woman whose life is accompanied by invisible "companions" who shape her destiny in ways both helpful and harmful.Narrator Eva McEwen's mother Barbara dies on the day of Eva's birth in 1920. When she's six, playing outside her home in the Scottish lowlands, Eva meets a silver-haired woman and a freckled girl she soon realizes can't be seen by others. Raised by her elderly father and his sister Lily (the first in a series of characters rendered with extraordinary subtlety and depth), the lonely girl takes comfort from her invisible friends but also realizes that "the presence of the companions in my life was like a hidden deformity: ugly, mysterious, and incomprehensible." The figures rescue her from menacing gypsies, but they also fling furniture around her room and get her fired from her first job. When Eva becomes a nurse in Glasgow during WWII and falls in love with plastic surgeon Samuel Rosenblum, the companions destroy her chance to marry him. Or do they? Livesey's precisely calibrated narrative, characteristically cognizant of human complexities and contradictions, reminds us that we are both subject to forces beyond our control and responsible for our lives. It may be that Eva chose to let Samuel go, though she grieves for him even after she marries kind schoolmaster Matthew and bears a daughter, Ruth. Guilt over leaving her father and Aunt Lily further shadows her life, and her mother Barbara's absence remains an aching wound. The radiant yet unsettling climax suggests that Barbara also had companions, and that Ruth will make her own choice about whether she needs this otherworldly support. This isn't a ghost story, but rather a searching examination of how we deal with our ghosts. Livesey's scrupulous prose, lyrical yet classically exact, is the perfect vehicle to convey her multilayered insights.Pitiless, deeply moving, and terrifying: another flawless work from an uncompromising artist. (Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2001)
Margot Livesey talks about her writing, focusing on her 2009 book The House on Fortune Street.
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