The place feels alive but the characters don't really. I dunno it was ok. Gave me Annie Proulx vibes a little bit but way better and less gross than that. ( )

I love when I grab a book because I can't find anything else to read, and it turns out to be a satisfying, challenging read. A topical setting - a mountain region in the Appalachians, coal mining, drug infestations, complicated familial relationships, torn friendships, challenging- sometimes even repellant, characters, this book had it all. Oh, and snakes! My opinions of the characters kept changing, they were well rounded, difficult and yet somehow, lovable. The author managed to richly describe some peripheral characters in a mere sentence or two. I have read three books since The Evening Hour, and yet this is the one I keep thinking about. I eagerly await Carter's next novel. ( )

This book tells the story of a man named Cole who works as an aid in a nursing home in a rural town in the heart of coal mining country in West Virginia. Cole is a loner, raised by his strict religious grandparents. Cole feeds,bathes,shops and takes care of the old people not just at the nursing home but all throughout the holler. Unfortunately Cole is also a drug dealer, who peddles the surplus drugs of these old people. Many of the people he deals to or buys from are real characters. The area where the book takes place is depressing but the story isn't. It is sad that there are these types of great books out there, and they get little or no promotion. This was a great story. ( )

I love it when I stumble across a book that ends up being a gratifying read.

That's what happened with The Evening Hour, Carter Sickels' debut novel. I saw a short review of it somewhere but don't remember what it was that prompted me to put it on the reserve list at the library. Even after I brought it home I almost didn't read it. The description on the back cover just didn't sound like the type of book I like. I gave it a chance and after reading it in two sittings over less than 24 hours, it was clear that was a good decision.

The Evening Hour is an extremely well-written (and readable) story in which you succumb to the plot and the characters. It's not a thriller. It's not fast-paced. It's not filled with action or adventure. In its own quiet way, it's one of those books that you kind of dread finishing.

Set in the "hollers" and back roads near a small coal mining community in West Virginia, Sickels gives us plenty of believable characters who are "have-nots" and heading toward even less -- or worse. Other than the coal mining industry, the only jobs seem to be low-paying service jobs, whether at a local eatery or Walmart. The book is written from the viewpoint of Cole Freeman, an aide at a nursing home who makes more money selling prescription drugs of the elderly to the younger. But the book is not built solely on Freeman. Sickels gives us a sense of the people, the land, environmental degradation, drug and meth use in rural areas, and the ties that somehow keep people in places where they realize there's probably no better future.

It's not that Freeman's story isn't interesting. He was raised by his snake-handling Pentecostal minister godfather and has only seen his mother once since she disappeared immediately after his birth 27 years before. Not surprisingly, he has some religious and mother issues to work out. His drug-dealing and occasional thieving seem diametrically opposed to the deep care and concern he has for family, friends and the elderly both in the nursing home and outside it. Although Freeman seems to have synthesized these elements and become someone who senses there is more going on in the lives of area residents than is always apparent.

At times the setting conjures a Winter's Bone-type feel. Here, though, Freeman is not on a mission; like his friends and family, he is simply living life as he has come to know it. The Evening Hour can be and frequently is bleak. Yet the unforced realism is a large part of what grabs and maintains the reader's interest.

The book may well not top or even make my best of the year list. But that's not a prerequisite for enjoying an exemplary novel.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie.)