The Night Gardener

by Marjorie Sandor

Through these essays emerges a portrait of a mother, scholar, fly fisher, and gardener living each role with furious passion.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays

206 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1999

About the author

Marjorie Sandor is the author of four books, and most recently, the editor of the anthology The Uncanny Reader: Stories from the Shadows. Her other books include The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction (2011), as well as a story collection, Portrait of my Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime, which won the 2004 National Jewish Book Award in Fiction, and an essay collection, The Night Gardener: A Search for Home won the 2000 Oregon Book Award for literary non-fiction. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, AGNI, The Hopkins Review and The Harvard Review among others. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon, where she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Oregon State University.

Reviews

[Brenna Crotty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved these essays. Although the structure of the collection sometimes felt loose or meandering to me, each essay was beautifully constructed, with energetic storytelling that used economical language, vivid description, and thoughtful reflection to lead the reader to a new idea.

[Anna Adami]

The Night Gardener is a collection of essays that read more like short stories. Memoirettes. They don't guide us through ideas as much as through human moments — engaging, scene-based explorations of fishing, mothering, moving, gardening, and leaving a marriage. Marjorie Sandor's language is purposeful; neither restrained nor flowery. Her stories are generous and forgiving.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Majorie Sandor does a nice job of putting together moments of time. I really enjoyed the structure of this book because I felt each essay could stand on its own, yet the parts tied together nicely. I think my favorite essay was at the end of part 3, Rhapsody in Green. It does a nice job of using the color to introduce the beginning of Sandor's marital problems, which are then discussed further in part 4. The use of the color to ground the essay worked well and seduced me into wanting to read further.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Blew recommended this to me for one of my critical reads of the 2009-10 year.