Critical Praise

"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

"Like birds thrown off course by severe storms, James, Rose and Enid all emerge from the war in places far different from where they started. Inspired by the resiliency of the natural world, Humphreys (COVENTRY, 2009) creates a narrative arc that is compact and sinewy, yet from her spare prose and refined imagery springs an arresting novel of regret, contrition and redemption that glimmers with transcendent moments of hope and valor. An ingeniously elegant and instinctively restrained tale about the durability of the human spirit." 

—Booklist, starred review

"THE EVENING CHORUS serenades people brutally marked by war, yet enduring to live --- and relish --- the tiny pleasures of another day. With her trademark prose --- exquisitely limpid --- Humphreys convinces us of the birdlike strength of the powerless."

—Emma Donoghue, author of ROOM

“In THE EVENING CHORUS the interventions of war, and the resulting human tragedies, play out against a natural world at once remote, alien and ultimately redemptive. The novel has a crystalline quality about it --- it's clear and complex and self-contained. It sparkles.”

—Jo Baker, author of LONGBOURN

“THE EVENING CHORUS is a poised, lyrical novel about the griefs of war, written with poetic intensity of observation. It resonates afterwards. I read it with pleasure.”

—Helen Dunmore, author of THE SIEGE and A SPELL OF WINTER

“If there's a writer of English prose with a more profound connection to the natural world and to the subtleties of human love and sorrow than Helen Humphreys, I don't know who it is. THE EVENING CHORUS is rich with her particular gift for symphonic cadences and beautiful imagery that moves a story forward with the momentum of a big train gathering speed. This riveting novel is a song. Listen.”

—Richard Bausch, author of THE LAST GOOD TIME, the forthcoming BEFORE, DURING, AFTER and others