The Ever End
A woman discovers her new fiancé and his family are not what they seem in Audrey Wilson’s Midwestern thriller The Ever End.
Following her mother’s death, Margo represses her grief with an engagement to Sam, her boyfriend of six months. In anticipation of their eventual wedding, Sam takes Margo to meet his family in Iowa. The change of scenery from her Chicago home unsettles Margo, as do the religious tendencies of Sam’s relatives. She feels uneasy enough without the paranormal visions that haunt her as the visit begins. Margo’s only source of normalcy is Rebecca, the town’s wedding planner, who is coincidentally the only other queer woman in town.
On top of being overbearing when it comes to wedding planning, Sam’s family engages with the teachings of an unusual televangelist. During her stay, Margo squirms under the pressure to accommodate their disconcerting traditions. As she gets bullied into decisions that she’s uncomfortable with, Margo is forced to reevaluate her own agency, her relationship with Sam, and the inexplicable things she’s been seeing since arriving in town. All the while, her grasp on reality slips further.
Margo’s queerness haunts the story as much as any paranormal presence. Since she can pass for straight in her relationship with Sam, she keeps her bisexuality hidden from her fiancé’s family. Despite a sexual relationship with a woman in the past, her “virginity” with a man is still suspiciously important to Sam’s relatives. From the validity of her queer identity to the clothing she wears to bed, almost every decision is made without her input, contributing to the book’s tormenting sense of invalidation and powerlessness.
A narrative of control set against a rotting Midwestern backdrop, The Ever End challenges the agency of a woman in a new engagement.
Reviewed by
Violet Glenn
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