Sleep Before Evening
Sleep Before Evening by Magdalena Ball
- Paperback: 296 pages
- Publisher: Bewrite Books (July 24, 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1904492967
- ISBN-13: 978-1904492962
Marianne is teetering at the edge of reason. A death in the family sends her brilliant academic career and promising future spiraling out of control until resentment towards those who shaped her past leads her on a wild and desperate search for the truth about herself. On the seedy side of New York, she meets Miles, a hip musician busking the streets and playing low-rent venues in a muddled bid to make his own dreams come true. In her new life, she finds anarchic squalor, home grown music and poetry, booze, drugs, sex, violence, love, loss, and, above all, exhilarating freedom on her troubled journey from sleep to awakening. This gritty, relentless story unfolds with the same cool detachment that motivates the central character to peel back the layers of her life and expose the painful scalding within.
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Sleep Before Evening
The book trailer, excerpts, media, reviews, and lots more about Sleep.
Reviews of books by some of the hottest writers working today, exclusive author interviews, literary news and criticism. This award winning website is a haven for book lovers.
Sleep Before Evening
The book trailer, excerpts, media, reviews, and lots more about Sleep.
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Sleep Before Evening
Amazon Price: $17.99 (as of 01/09/2009) 
Sleep Before Evening Book Trailer
Sleep Before Evening book trailer
Book trailer for Magdalena Ball's debut novel Sleep Before Evening. This gritty, relentless story unfolds with the same cool detachment that motivates the central character to peel back the layers of her life and expose the painful scalding within
Runtime: 1:29
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Reviews
"Magdalena Ball's writing, insightful and deep, engages the reader from page one. Her characters linger long after the story resolves to its perfect conclusion. Highly recommended for a glimpse into the motivations behind heroin abuse, as well as thoroughly alluring family drama, Sleep Before Evening is powerfully addictive in its own right." Aaron Paul Lazar, http://aaronlazar.blogspot.com/
"Magdalena Ball demonstrates her mastery of the musicality of language and many scenes are imbued with striking imagery...As the drama coils tighter and tighter, it is this quality of writing that keeps the reader utterly glued. As Marianne struggles with her demons and we almost hold our breath as she nears her eighteenth birthday, Magdalena Ball's Sleep Before Evening shows us that in order to find yourself, you sometimes have to lose yourself first." CATHY BIRIBAUER, The Rose & Thorn
"Once you start reading Marianne's tragic story you will not be able to finish. I read this book for 4 straight hours. It was like the story took me over. The book connects to you the way Thirteen did. It is moving and harsh and every word seemed true. I thought it was a great read." BRIA PHILLIPS, Book Diva
"This is a well written, absorbing and fast moving coming of age story involving the ugliness and beauty of life. Marianne at 17 is a very clever girl but also a bit of a loner. When her much loved grandfather and friend dies she becomes more isolated and confused with her parents and school. In a year we clearly see the disasters of the downward spiraling path she follows, and it is a wonder that she survives. Her sense of self and loss are deeply felt by the reader. Near the end of the novel she makes the decision to reclaim life and with the help of love and music matures with wisdom, insight, and conscious understanding of herself." MARGARET BROUGHTON, Literary Fiction Reader
"The dialogue is solid and believable, and the characters live and breathe and scratch themselves. The drug scenes and the horrors of dependence are especially well-rendered, but the story is ultimately uplifting and optimistic. It is a triumph of the soul. Read this book." CHAD HAUTMANN, author of Billie's Ghost
"The writing is exquisite, without ever calling attention to itself, which is a real feat. It is a pleasure to read. The pitch is perfect, and the characters are so beautifully developed and very intriguing." JOAN SCHWEIGHARDT, author of Virtual Silence, Island, Homebodies and Gudrun's Tapestry
"Sleep Before Evening is music. Magdalena Ball weaves the sounds of poetry with an important story, compassionately 'sung.' CAROLYN HOWARD-JOHNSON, author of This is the Place and Tracings, http://carolynhoward-johnson.com/
"This is a good story that makes the reader feel the highs and lows of Marianne as if they are their own. It reminds me of the style adopted by the Russian writer Dostoyevsky. He had the ability to get the reader to feel exactly what his characters felt; a gift Magdalena ball has too. Sleep Before Evening is a well written insight into human suffering. The author shows an in-depth knowledge of how to hold readers attention, and make them eager to know more. This is a debut novel that shows the author has many more novels inside her, which will provoke strong emotions in readers of her work." WARREN THURSTON, Owner of Pentales, www.pentales.com
"There is so much beautiful writing here, soaring passages." RUHAMA VELTFORT, author of The Promised Land
"I tend to read novels in one of two ways. If I don't like it, I stop after about 30 minutes and don't touch it again. If I like it, I can't stop until I've finished. Sleep Before Evening falls into the latter category for me. It is a moving, gripping and gritty story of many different kinds of love, loss and addiction. The sordid world of heroin addiction is set against a background of chess, poetry, music and art to create a strong storyline. But the use of language and imagery in this novel are also fantastic."
Sarah James, http://www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/sarah james
"Magdalena Ball's first novel, Sleep Before Evening, is required reading for aficionados of the school of confessional writing. While the book is empowered by its conspicuously female perspective, it somehow manages to transcend the boundaries of gender and force-feeds the reader with doses of a reality much harsher than the beatific title suggests. Ball employs the rare literary voice capable of juxtaposing harrowing experience and work-a-day home life. She accomplishes this rare feat by traversing twin avenues of approach, 1) a deceptively mundane accounting of family events and, 2) a deliberate fracturing of sensibilities unique to, well . . . a David Lynch film. This reviewer recommends that you procure yourself a copy of this minor masterpiece while it is still available as a first edition." Dr Harry E. Hughes
Sleep Before Evening is a riveting and fast moving coming of age story dealing both with the attractive as well as the revolting aspects of anguish suffered by many who have fragile inner strength to guide them in their search for discovering who they truly are. Marianne at 17 is intelligent although she has learned to withdraw into herself as protection against the craziness of her family peopled with a childish, bemused pretty self centered mother, absentee father, patient but fed up stepfather, loss of the grandparents who had provided a steadying rock to which Mari might cling. Ball presents plausible dialogue which become at times gritty and tart, well-fleshed characters who very well may be people we all have known; smiles, pleasantries, warts, foibles and all. The horrors of dependence and torpidity of drug scenes are portrayed in stark realism. Molly Martin, Book Pleasures
"Magdalena Ball demonstrates her mastery of the musicality of language and many scenes are imbued with striking imagery...As the drama coils tighter and tighter, it is this quality of writing that keeps the reader utterly glued. As Marianne struggles with her demons and we almost hold our breath as she nears her eighteenth birthday, Magdalena Ball's Sleep Before Evening shows us that in order to find yourself, you sometimes have to lose yourself first." CATHY BIRIBAUER, The Rose & Thorn
"Once you start reading Marianne's tragic story you will not be able to finish. I read this book for 4 straight hours. It was like the story took me over. The book connects to you the way Thirteen did. It is moving and harsh and every word seemed true. I thought it was a great read." BRIA PHILLIPS, Book Diva
"This is a well written, absorbing and fast moving coming of age story involving the ugliness and beauty of life. Marianne at 17 is a very clever girl but also a bit of a loner. When her much loved grandfather and friend dies she becomes more isolated and confused with her parents and school. In a year we clearly see the disasters of the downward spiraling path she follows, and it is a wonder that she survives. Her sense of self and loss are deeply felt by the reader. Near the end of the novel she makes the decision to reclaim life and with the help of love and music matures with wisdom, insight, and conscious understanding of herself." MARGARET BROUGHTON, Literary Fiction Reader
"The dialogue is solid and believable, and the characters live and breathe and scratch themselves. The drug scenes and the horrors of dependence are especially well-rendered, but the story is ultimately uplifting and optimistic. It is a triumph of the soul. Read this book." CHAD HAUTMANN, author of Billie's Ghost
"The writing is exquisite, without ever calling attention to itself, which is a real feat. It is a pleasure to read. The pitch is perfect, and the characters are so beautifully developed and very intriguing." JOAN SCHWEIGHARDT, author of Virtual Silence, Island, Homebodies and Gudrun's Tapestry
"Sleep Before Evening is music. Magdalena Ball weaves the sounds of poetry with an important story, compassionately 'sung.' CAROLYN HOWARD-JOHNSON, author of This is the Place and Tracings, http://carolynhoward-johnson.com/
"This is a good story that makes the reader feel the highs and lows of Marianne as if they are their own. It reminds me of the style adopted by the Russian writer Dostoyevsky. He had the ability to get the reader to feel exactly what his characters felt; a gift Magdalena ball has too. Sleep Before Evening is a well written insight into human suffering. The author shows an in-depth knowledge of how to hold readers attention, and make them eager to know more. This is a debut novel that shows the author has many more novels inside her, which will provoke strong emotions in readers of her work." WARREN THURSTON, Owner of Pentales, www.pentales.com
"There is so much beautiful writing here, soaring passages." RUHAMA VELTFORT, author of The Promised Land
"I tend to read novels in one of two ways. If I don't like it, I stop after about 30 minutes and don't touch it again. If I like it, I can't stop until I've finished. Sleep Before Evening falls into the latter category for me. It is a moving, gripping and gritty story of many different kinds of love, loss and addiction. The sordid world of heroin addiction is set against a background of chess, poetry, music and art to create a strong storyline. But the use of language and imagery in this novel are also fantastic."
Sarah James, http://www.writelink.co.uk/blogs/sarah james
"Magdalena Ball's first novel, Sleep Before Evening, is required reading for aficionados of the school of confessional writing. While the book is empowered by its conspicuously female perspective, it somehow manages to transcend the boundaries of gender and force-feeds the reader with doses of a reality much harsher than the beatific title suggests. Ball employs the rare literary voice capable of juxtaposing harrowing experience and work-a-day home life. She accomplishes this rare feat by traversing twin avenues of approach, 1) a deceptively mundane accounting of family events and, 2) a deliberate fracturing of sensibilities unique to, well . . . a David Lynch film. This reviewer recommends that you procure yourself a copy of this minor masterpiece while it is still available as a first edition." Dr Harry E. Hughes
Sleep Before Evening is a riveting and fast moving coming of age story dealing both with the attractive as well as the revolting aspects of anguish suffered by many who have fragile inner strength to guide them in their search for discovering who they truly are. Marianne at 17 is intelligent although she has learned to withdraw into herself as protection against the craziness of her family peopled with a childish, bemused pretty self centered mother, absentee father, patient but fed up stepfather, loss of the grandparents who had provided a steadying rock to which Mari might cling. Ball presents plausible dialogue which become at times gritty and tart, well-fleshed characters who very well may be people we all have known; smiles, pleasantries, warts, foibles and all. The horrors of dependence and torpidity of drug scenes are portrayed in stark realism. Molly Martin, Book Pleasures
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Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem wrote
Congratulations Maggie on a great presentation of a difficult process of maturing. I wish you every success with this book and the many more I am sure you'll write. Hurray for you!
Posted September 26, 2007
