A review by shewasonlyevie
Cloven Hooves, by Megan Lindholm
5.0
Cloven Hooves is a book that feels incredibly personal to me--and, no, not just because the protagonist's name is Evelyn--that I find it hard to justify my high rating or even to recommend it to others, even those readers who already love Robin Hobb / Megan Lindholm.
Told in first person present tense, the narrative begins as Evelyn is flying with her small family made up of her husband, Tom, and her son, Teddy, from Alaska to Washington to help Tom's parents at the family farm/business for a few months. Immediately, Hobb / Lindholm is able to suck you into Evelyn's world of otherness and isolation: you see Evelyn as an adult being an outsider to her husband's family and, in recollections of her childhood, you see her solace and comfort in nature and the challenge and hurt she faces in conformity. You quickly learn that Evelyn has a friend, her only friend, from childhood in a satyr, who she calls Pan. Her friend returns as they both have grown to adulthood, and she has to face the conflicts he presents in her life.
The prose is simultaneously gorgeous and brutal----but there is no gratuitousness to any of it. I have always said, since starting Realm of the Elderlings, that I would read anything she wrote, even if it was erotica: Cloven Hooves is as close to erotica as I think an author can get without it being labelled erotica, but it is still distinctly Robin Hobb / Megan Lindholm. It is also a coming-of-age novel and a fable and a deeply psychological depiction of, I think, a near-universal experience of depression and grief. It also is a beautiful exploration of the power of nature and connections.
Told in first person present tense, the narrative begins as Evelyn is flying with her small family made up of her husband, Tom, and her son, Teddy, from Alaska to Washington to help Tom's parents at the family farm/business for a few months. Immediately, Hobb / Lindholm is able to suck you into Evelyn's world of otherness and isolation: you see Evelyn as an adult being an outsider to her husband's family and, in recollections of her childhood, you see her solace and comfort in nature and the challenge and hurt she faces in conformity. You quickly learn that Evelyn has a friend, her only friend, from childhood in a satyr, who she calls Pan. Her friend returns as they both have grown to adulthood, and she has to face the conflicts he presents in her life.
The prose is simultaneously gorgeous and brutal--