CHANGING SEASONS

The fifth and final installment in Nelson's Honest Women series (Honest April, 1994, etc.) is little more than a character waiting for a story to happen. Evelyn Lanier's quest for true love proves flimsy stuff on which to base a novel, largely because Greg, the would-be hero, disappears before he makes his presence felt, and Evelyn's endless musings about him comprise the bulk of the narrative. When as a college senior—in 1950s Tennessee—the quietly attractive Evelyn meets fellow student Greg Beall, she is already engaged to Ward Knight, a biologist with a chip on his shoulder, thanks to his lower-middle-class origins and Evelyn's wealth. But while what Evelyn feels for Greg far surpasses her feelings for Ward, she is above all else a woman of honor, and so she makes a choice she'll regret for years to come: She settles down with Ward, who fathers her two children but never makes her happy. As it turns out, Greg dies in Vietnam, after Evelyn and Ward's doomed marriage has fallen apart (and long after he, Greg, has inexplicably been eliminated as a character). Now, as a university professor, in a community of fellow writers and teachers, Evelyn has a second chance for love, or rather two: with Rob McFergus, a charismatic but married fiction writer with whom she's having an affair, and with Judd Adivino, a widower whose wife had befriended Evelyn when she needed it most. Through it all, Evelyn writes poetry, mothers Elaine and Ted as best she can, and hopes that her turn for happiness is around the bend. It takes a near disaster to show Evelyn that true love doesn't always have to be hard to come by. Not Nelson's—or this series'—finest moment; Evelyn's internalized struggles grow toward the inescapably tedious.