Eva Moves the Furniture: A Novel

This story will break your heart. It is so perfectly beautiful that writing this review is an amazing challenge. The story is told in first person narrative by Eva McEwen a lonely girl whose mother died in childbirth. She is adored by her widower father and her aunt, who has come to help raise her. Though beloved by her family, she is lonely, friendless, and very isolated. When she is six years old the "companions" visit her for the first time. From her childhood through her adult life we watch Eva mature and grow into a woman, eventually becoming a nurse during WWII in Scotland. The companions are with her from start to finish. Are they good or are they evil? You'll have to read the book to find out. This gut-wrenching story is one you won't be able to put down until the last page. I sat silently for several minutes after the last line of the book - it had such a great impact. This book is a keeper.

I am not the type of person that reads books about "Family", "Coming-of-Age", or "Poignant Romance" - I grew out of those when I was about 13. I found a review for this book in the New Yorker and it sounded very well-written, if nothing else, and the cover art was GORGEOUS, so I got it. Well, this was one thing this year that definitely exceeded expectations.Eva's mother died in childbirth and Eva is raised in a village in Scotland by her father and a maiden aunt. During her childhood she comes to know two spirits who are decidedly ambiguous in nature toward her. They protect her from danger, but also spoil her friendships and in some form, her happiness. As she grows up, these spirits continue to have tight hold on her life - wrecking a marriage proposal, but also saving her life and introducing her to her future husband. Things wrap up when Eva has a child of her own and she finally figures out who her incorporeal friends are.One of the main reasons that I fell for this slim book is that it deals with situations in a matter-of-fact, yet magical, way. The gross story has little magic in it, but Livesey's writing has a kind of simple witchcraft in it that makes every scene appear like a Maxfield Parrish painting. It is evocative without being verbose, and lyrical without being flabby. Even the sappiness that must be inherent in a novel in which there are: 2 births, 3 major deaths and many heartbreaks, is toned to a minimum by the writing style. You will not soon forget the ending lines and picture they evoke. I keep refering to how things look - and this is true - you don't read "Eva Moves the Furniture", you watch it. I do so hope that they'll make a movie out of it!My only complaints are with the length and the amount of character development in the minor characters. In 200+ pages, Livesey spans an entire life, complete with flashbacks - I would GLADLY have spent the extra time reading the extra pages if it meant that I could have understood more about the world and people that swirl around Eva. Although you get a general feel for Eva's friends and lovers, you really can't say you know them as you come to know Eva, her parents, and her guardians.Its a small price to pay for such a sparkling diamond of a novel. Plus, even if the book doesn't hit you that hard, the cover picture is beautiful and almost disturbing in an ethereal kind of way.Cheers!

Too bad I can only give this book five stars...Morgot Livesey's newest novel chronicles the life of Eva McEwan, told by the character in the form of a memoir. We are there at her birth, and we witness -- after the appearance of 6 magpies, a dark omen -- the death of her mother that very night. We see her grow, under the loving care of her father David and her aunt Lily, blessed with an uncomplicated childhood in the small village of Troon, Scotland -- uncomplicated, that is, but for her two companions. They appear as if out of nowhere, and vanish just as mysteriously. As she comes to know them -- a middle-aged woman and a young girl -- it dawns upon Eva that no one else can see them. They are with her, on and off, throughout her life.The story of her life is a touching one, filled with the events that one might expect -- school, making and losing friends, choosing a career, successes and failures, romances. What sets this novel apart from many others, for me, is not just the skill and care with which Livesey develops her characters, but her respect for them. Time and again I've read books that were spoiled by the author's irritating insistance on assigning attributes to characters that seem -- well, out of character for them. Livesey has the respect for her characters -- and the good sense -- to keep them real and true to themselves. Those who people this story are lovingly engendered -- Livesey is extremely adept, through both voicing and observation, in creating believable, whole characters with whom I had absolutely no trouble empathizing. Her skill in this area gave the book a much greater impact. This obvious concern for her creations, coupled with her style of prose (shining in its illumination, but never wordy, always natural) and a very moving story line, made this one of the best books I've read this year. It's original look at the relationships between the dead and the living is completely refreshing -- those who appreciate this aspect of this book should check out Sheri Reynolds' excellent novel A GRACIOUS PLENTY as well.This is the first of Margot Livesey's works I've read -- now I have ANOTHER author to investigate further. I'LL NEVER GET ALL OF THE BOOKS ON MY 'LIST' READ! (Oh well -- not too serious a complaint, and nothing to do with this fine book...).

On the surface at least, Eva MacEwen, the protagonist in Eva Moves the Furniture, is an ordinary woman who leads an ordinary life. Her mother dies shortly after she is born and she is raised by her aunt and father. She grows up in a small Scottish town and eventually moves away to study nursing and falls in love. Eva's story, however, is not ordinary for two important reasons. First, she is visited, at a very young age, by her "companions", two ghosts who come in and out of her life, helping, interfering, meddling. Second, the story is told by Margot Livesey who is quite an extraordinary storyteller. She breaths life into this "ghost" story so that it is interesting, moving and subtly emotional. Eva is as surprised by these ghosts as we are and her narration is wonderfully understated. I truly loved this novel. There was something almost comforting about reading it. While it is a story about Eva's life, it is also the story of the love we have for our families and how absolutely powerful that love is. The final pages moved me to tears without a scintilla of sentimentality. Ms. Livesey is truly talented. I recently finished The Missing World, and, while I loved both novels, each is completely different. Enjoy this one.

This is a novel that lives in your mind like a poem. It's a ghost story, a coming of age novel, a book about love and death. It is difficult to put the book down, once you have begun reading. Right away you like Eva, the narrator, and empathize with her loneliness, and her struggle to live her own life, to make a living. The spirits who have visited her since she was a baby--"the woman" and "the girl"-- are ghostly projections of family. They help and hurt, they're jealous, selfish, selfless all at once just like real mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. Eva's Scotland is a nether world of spirits. They seem to like the granite cities and the hills. At one level the book poses the question: how can human beings live their own lives while doing justice to those who give us life and help us?But EVA MOVES THE FURNITURE is also an absorbing story. You want to know what is going to happen when Eva, working as a nurse in Edinburgh during WW II, falls in love with a surgeon. The author has a keen sense of history. Most of the action of the novel takes place before and during the war, but there is not a false note in the entire book. It is utterly convincing in its historical setting. At the end of the novel, Eva discovers who the ghosts were during their time as living persons. Eva knows herself at this point, too.You finish the book with an "ah Bartleby, ah humanity" kind of feeling.