Evensong was published by Ballantine in 1999 and continues the story of Margaret Gower from Father Melancholy’s Daughter. Margaret is now in her forties, newly married to a headmaster, and serving as rector of her own parish — All Saints High Balsam, a small mountain church in western North Carolina. The novel covers the first year of her ministry there, as she learns what it means to be a female priest in a community that is not entirely sure it wants one.
The title — “Evensong” is the Anglican evening prayer service — suggests the novel’s temporal and spiritual framework: this is a story about endings and beginnings, about the close of day and the gathering of community, about the rituals that give shape to time. Godwin structures the novel around the liturgical year, each section corresponding to a different season of the church calendar, and the rhythm of worship — daily offices, Sunday services, sacraments — provides the pulse of Margaret’s life.
Godwin is one of the few contemporary American novelists who treats religious vocation with complete seriousness — not as psychology, not as social phenomenon, but as genuine spiritual experience. Margaret’s priesthood is not metaphorical; she really believes, really prays, really experiences God’s presence and absence. The novel manages to be simultaneously a realistic domestic fiction (marriage, career, community) and a spiritual narrative (faith, doubt, vocation) without either mode undermining the other.
Collecting Evensong
First edition (Ballantine, New York, 1999): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $10–$25
- Without jacket: $5–$10