Book Review: Mary Agria's 'Garden of Eve'

Local author Mary Agria has just released her sixth novel, "Garden of Eve." Agria, 69, holds degrees in literature and linguistics and began her career in non-fiction and technical writing in Northern Michigan. Since retiring to the North Fork, she was thrilled by the positive response to her first novel, "Time in a Garden," released in 2006, and continues to produce books that deal with human issues such as finding meaning in senior years, resolving parent-child relationships and facing change and loss. Agria is also an organist at several North Fork churches.

Contributor reviewed "Garden of Eve" for North Fork Patch.

Time is the quiet beholder in Mary Agria's new novel, "Garden of Eve," a lyrical account of a widow's struggle with loss and renewal in the small town of Xenaphon, Mich.

In this allusionary setting is Eve, a nature column writer for the town's barely surviving newspaper. This column is the window through which she remembers her late fiance Adam, using inspired language that ripens in tandem with the season. Overseeing this column is George, Eve's aloofly disgruntled yet hopeful boss who serves as the professional mediator between Eve's mounting loneliness and the hope that comes with reconnection, family, friends, and most importantly, time.  

Eve's narrative voice is authoritative, but tinged with innocence and expectation that underscores the immediacy of loss, regardless of age. In one column for the Gazette, Eve writes:

"Time creeps toward the last syllable recorded about it, and there's certainly a lot.  I'm also vaguely alarmed that mouse-clicks in cyberspace are becoming my equivalent of J. Alfred Prufrock's coffee spoons. The measure of my days."

Indeed, the placation of time cannot reverse Eve's emotional unraveling, nor it cannot deplete the memories of Adam, whose illusory images culminate in revelation by Eve that is professedly timeless and universally poetic. Agria has a natural tendency to observe and in doing so,  directs our attention to her beautiful characters who are as remarkable and truthful as her setting.  

For more information on the book and Agria, go to www.maryagria.com