At Last, Marisa Silver’s latest novel, is a beautifully written family saga following two widowed women whose lives become intertwined after their children marry each other. Silver’s novel captures the feelings of confusion, frustration, and tenderness that arise when two different families, with their own traditions and expectations, combine. The novel also serves as a commentary on the changing role of women in American society.
Helene Simonauer and Evelyn Turner are depicted as matriarchs who love their children but are suspicious of each other. Both women have been stymied in their lives by the expectations and societal norms of their generation. Helene and Evelyn, along with Ruth, Evelyn’s daughter, and Francie, Ruth’s daughter and the older women’s shared granddaughter, all struggle with understanding what they want and figuring out how to get it. Throughout much of the novel, Helene and Evelyn compete for the attention of Francie, a precocious and troubled girl.
At Last, which begins in the days before the wedding between Tom, Helene’s son, and Ruth, is primarily set in Nebraska, Ohio, and New York between 1971 and 2015. Silver also includes brief, but important, glances backwards in time, describing how Helene and Evelyn were raised, their marriages, and their attempts to nurture their families.
The tension between Helene and Evelyn is immediately evident and viscerally portrayed. Silver excels at detailing simple scenes loaded with meaning. In the opening chapter, Helene has been tasked with paying for the wedding flowers, which she considers to be a “meager” role. The two women are forced to spend time together in a car getting to the florist, who happens to be Evelyn’s sister. Evelyn drives and smokes. Helene sulks, and both women are lost in bitter thoughts and speculation about each other. From the start, the reader isn’t sure with whom to side but understands that both women are sympathetic yet deeply flawed.
The bulk of Silver’s novel jumps between close third person points-of-view for Helene and Evelyn, with an occasional jump to Ruth, Francie, and other main characters. The change of perspectives allows the reader to not only empathize with each character but also identify their limitations and weaknesses.
While the characters in At Last aren’t overtly religious, they are explicitly described as Jewish. Helene is the most tied to the Jewish community, but her connection seems to be shallow and concerned more with outward appearances — it’s as if she has fallen into Jewish rituals and synagogue-related life as she fell into marriage and motherhood. Both Helene and Evelyn seem to have little drive to seriously examine either themselves or their spirituality.
The novel poses questions: What would have happened to either woman if she had rebelled against society’s expectations? Would Helene and Evelyn have chosen different paths if they had been born in a different era? How does grief manifest itself in people differently? How can a person pursue happiness and peace when life has presented unexpected challenges? The questions, of course, aren’t answered nor can they ever be, but Silver has created an engaging novel that forces the reader to think about what it means to be a woman and a mother in an ever-changing world.
Anna Stolley Persky, a journalist and lawyer by background, writes fiction and creative nonfiction. She’s been published in The Washington Post, Mystery Tribune, Ellery Queen, and Pithead Chapel.
