The characters are often frustrating, and Heather could use a good slap in the face. She rattles Schiller's settled old age, but in the end his spirit is unchanged, and his love for his family remains the beautiful center of this book, which takes a look at writers and their inspirations. As the novel winds down, we are left to imagine what the next days, weeks, months will hold for characters we have come to know and (except for Heather!) root for. ( )

I wish more people would discover this novel!

Originally, I'd heard of the story because of the wonderful performance of Frank Langella in the 2007 movie based on the novel. I just read "Starting Out in the Evening" and it is a wonderful book! The movie did a fairly good job of recreating the feel of the story, but there is no substitute for the real thing.

This is an incredibly rich and rewarding read for anyone who is interested in the writing life, or what it is like to be young and full of promise, or what it is like to be old and trying exit with some semblance of grace, or what is like to live in New York City, or just anyone who appreciates a very well written literary novel. ( )

A touching story of an aging author (Leonard Schiller) and the young graduate student, Heather Wolfe, who chooses to write her thesis about Schiller's works. Heather is drawn to Schiller based on her association with the characters and themes of his first two books; however, as their relationship develops, Heather is perplexed by how seeminlgy different Leonard's ordinary life is from his characters. As the story develops, Leonard is faced with feelings of infatuation with a much younger woman while Heather has to decide how to critique her subject's work.

There were several passages that stood out for me while reading "Starting Out in the Evening":

“You seize your freedom in a spirit of rebelliousness, exuberance, defiant joy. But to live that choice – over the weeks and months and years to come – requires different qualities. It requires that you turn hard, turn rigid. Because it isn’t a choice that the world encourages, you have to wear a suit of armor to defend it.”

“The moments of beauty, the moments when you feel blessed, are only moments; but memory and imagination, treasuring them, can string them together like the delicate glories on the necklace her father had given her. Everything else passes away; that which you love remains.”

“That’s how I feel now. About myself. I don’t feel like an old man. I feel as if I’m still ripening. I feel as if I’m just starting to understand things. But what’s the use of this ripeness? It doesn’t give birth to anything. It doesn’t nourish anything. It just disappears.” ( )

A sweet and tender novel. An aging writer, Leonard Schiller, is approached by a grad student, 25 year old Heather Wolfe, who wants to write her thesis about his life and work. As their friendship unfolds so do a number of important themes: aging, death, the life of the writer, the New York literary scene, love, family and the meaning of life. To the writer's credit, Brian Morton's voice is androgynous. There were numerous passages worthy of highlighting, something I rarely do.

This book had a lot of promise, I thought. I generally enjoy reading novels with a "literary" theme. There were a few pretty interesting characters here - Schiller, the aging, failed writer who has dedicated his life to "art for art's sake"; the ambitious, somewhat ruthless young graduate student who has known only success in her short pampered life who, in a sense, "uses" Schiller; Schiller's daughter, Ariel, a dancer whose best years are behind her and who acutely feels her biological clock ticking; her found-again 40-ish boyfriend Casey ... All these people are at least mildly interesting, certainly. But the plot lumbers along at a nearly glacial pace with nothing much ever really happening. I get it that this is a book about coming to terms with what life has dealt you, as well as about ambition and relationships. In that respect, it would fit easily into the ubiquitous "chick-lit" category, even though its author is a man. Brian Morton teaches at Sarah Lawrence. Maybe that's where these feminized sensibilities come from; I don't really know. The thing is, the book is just plain slow, and in the end it just kind of leaves you dangling out there in the stars. I see it's been made into an indie film, which gave it a second chance of sorts. And I suspect it might be a better film than it was a book. Sorry, Brian. It's just a little too cheesy for my plate. Elizabeth Berg-ish, only not as engaging as her stuff. I guess what I'm struggling to say here is, well ... Nope. I barely managed to finish it. ( )