Eva Moves the Furniture: A Novel by Margot Livesey

From the Publisher

From a highly acclaimed author-the enchanting, bittersweet story of a motherless young woman torn between real life and the otherwordly campanions only she can see

On the morning of Eva McEwen's birth, six magpies congregate in the apple tree outside the window-a bad omen, according to Scottish legend. That night Eva's mother dies, leaving her to be raised by her aunt and heartsick father in the small town of Troon, Scotland.

As a child, Eva is often visited by two companions: a woman and a girl. Invisible to everyone else,

they seem benevolent at first, helping her to tidy her room and collect the hens' eggs. But as she grows older, their intentions become increasingly unclear: Do they wish to protect or harm her? Is their meddling in her best interest or prompted by darker motivations?

In the shadow of World War II, Eva studies nursing in Glasgow, tending to the wounded soldiers. But when she falls in love with a young plastic surgeon, the companions seem to have a very different idea as to her fate, and once again she finds herself unable to resist their pull.

A magical novel about loneliness, love, and the profound connection between mother and daughter, Eva Moves the Furniture fuses the simplicity of a fairy tale with the complexity of adult passions.

Diane Johnson

. . . story that hooks you immediately, and perfect language with which to capture the inner lives of these odd, endearing characters.

Andrea Barrett

Not since Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping has there been such a beautiful novel about the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter.

Rosellen Brown

A quiet book with a deadly perception at its center.

Publishers Weekly

After Criminals and The Missing World, it should be no surprise that the immensely talented Livesey continues to juxtapose strange events with mundane daily activities, sending a jolt through her ordinary characters and settings. The wonder is that she can draw readers into her world so gently that the barriers between reality and the fantastic quickly fall. The first time the narrator Eva McEwen sees her "companions" she is six, and living near the Scottish town of Troon with her middle-aged father and her aunt, who came to raise Eva after her mother died in childbed. Though much loved, Eva is lonely, and when a woman who "shone as if she had been dipped in silver" and a young girl with long braids and freckles appear one afternoon in the garden, she is at first unaware that they are not corporeal. The companions, as she comes to call them, are not visible to others, however, and their purpose in her life seems unclear. Twice they save her from fatal harm; twice they destroy a romance; often they are comforting; sometimes they signal their presence by moving furniture. Eva works as a nurse in a Glasgow infirmary during WWII, but the burden of her secret keeps her from achieving intimacy with anyone. When she does confide in a man she loves, a brilliant surgeon, heartbreak ensues. She seeks solace in her mother's native village of Glenaird, where she marries and has a daughter. But in a poignant denouement, the significance of the companions is made clear. With remarkable control, Livesey presents the companions in matter-of-fact detail, eschewing frissons of horror and providing a lucid explanation of their presence. Her restraint and delicacy, and the reader's identification with theappealing Eva, result in a haunting drama. Agent, Amanda Urban. (Sept.) Forecast: An author tour and strong word of mouth should spark this novel's sales. Every mother who yearns to protect her child will relate to Eva and react emotionally to Livesey's moving story. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In a departure from her psychological tales full of menacing undercurrents (Homework, The Missing World), Livesey's latest outing is a deceptively simple coming-of-age story set in small-town Scotland between the wars. Eva McEwen, whose mother dies in childbirth, is lovingly raised by her father and aunt. What sets this ordinary tale slightly off kilter is the presence in Eva's life of two ghosts ("the companions," as she refers to them) a girl and a woman whom, she realizes very early on, only she can see. Although it is clear that the companions are there more for her protection than to cause harm, they seem capable of manipulating events in her life. From Eva's bucolic childhood through young adulthood, working first as an office girl and later as a wartime nurse, from a failed romance to a happy marriage and motherhood, her angel/ghosts are never far away, helping to steer her. But, in the end, as they repeatedly warn her, they are unable to change the course of her history. While it may take some Livesey fans by surprise, this lovely, bittersweet novel should find a warm place in their hearts. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/01.] Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A haunting and haunted fourth novel from Livesey ("The Missing World", 2000, etc.), this about a woman whose life is accompanied by invisible "companions" who shape her destiny in ways both helpful and harmful. Narrator Eva McEwen's mother Barbara dies on the day of Eva's birth in 1920. When she's six, playing outside her home in the Scottish lowlands, Eva meets a silver-haired woman and a freckled girl she soon realizes can't be seen by others. Raised by her elderly father and his sister Lily (the first in a series of characters rendered with extraordinary subtlety and depth), the lonely girl takes comfort from her invisible friends but also realizes that "the presence of the companions in my life was like a hidden deformity: ugly, mysterious, and incomprehensible." The figures rescue her from menacing gypsies, but they also fling furniture around her room and get her fired from her first job. When Eva becomes a nurse in Glasgow during WWII and falls in love with plastic surgeon Samuel Rosenblum, the companions destroy her chance to marry him. Or do they? Livesey's precisely calibrated narrative, characteristically cognizant of human complexities and contradictions, reminds us that we are both subject to forces beyond our control "and "responsible for our lives. It may be that Eva chose to let Samuel go, though she grieves for him even after she marries kind schoolmaster Matthew and bears a daughter, Ruth. Guilt over leaving her father and Aunt Lily further shadows her life, and her mother Barbara's absence remains an aching wound. The radiant yet unsettling climax suggests that Barbara also had companions, and that Ruth will make her own choice about whether she needs thisotherworldly support. This isn't a ghost story, but rather a searching examination of how we deal with our ghosts. Livesey's scrupulous prose, lyrical yet classically exact, is the perfect vehicle to convey her multilayered insights. Pitiless, deeply moving, and terrifying: another flawless work from an uncompromising artist.

Product Details

• Reading Group Guide
• Read an Excerpt

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions:
1. Is this novel a ghost story? If so, how does it compare with other ghost stories you may have read?

2. Early in the story, Eva, our narrator and protagonist, makes the claim: "Some parts of this story are true in one way, some in another." What does she mean by this remark? How does it apply throughout the novel?

3. Author Margot Livesey, in an interview about this book, admitted: "It took me a long time to realize that just because I didn't remember my mother, didn't mean she hadn't been important in my life. I think it was learning how to understand that feeling which enabled me to write the novel." How are these comments echoed in the pages of Eva Moves the Furniture -- and especially in the relationship between Eva and Barbara?

4. In the wake of her mother's death, Eva effectively acquires two different sets of surrogate parents: Lily and David (gentle country folk from the Scottish village of Troon) and the woman and the child (mysterious yet friendly visitors from another realm of existence). Discuss the larger purpose that each couple serves in Eva's life. When and why does each couple help Eva, and when and why-if at all-do they hinder her?

5. Describe the omens that occur on the day Eva is born, then discuss how, over the course of the novel, these omens turn out to be true or false. Also, talk about the presence and function of fate in this novel. How is the idea of fate or destiny represented by the two characters known as the companions?

6. Barbara, Lily, and Eva are all women who need to earn their own living. What does the novel suggest about the roles and possibilities for women in the first half of the twentieth century?

7. Describe the character of Samuel, and his attitude towards his patients and towards reconstructive surgery. Why does Eva liken her experiences with the companions to Samuel's being Jewish? And why, in turn, does she refuse to marry him?

8. What sort of picture does Eva Moves the Furniture give to life and work during wartime? Discuss the ways in which the depiction of the infirmary enhanced or changed your understanding of the Second World War.

9. This is a story in four parts, each with its own title. What do the four titles, and their progression, show us about Eva? Were you surprised by the title of Part IV: You? Can (and if so, does) this "you" interact with the companions in the same manner as Eva?

10. In her efforts to come to terms with her situation, Eva explores what might be termed various aspects of the supernatural: local legends, Judaism, lives of saints, and legends from other cultures. Do you believe in the supernatural? Have you ever had experiences that you regard as supernatural? How have you dealt with them and explained them to other people?

About the Author:
Margot Livesey is the award-winning author of the story collection Learning by Heart and the novels Homework, Criminals, and The Missing World. Born in Scotland, she now lives in the Boston area, where she is a writer-in-residence at Emerson College.

Read an Excerpt

The real difference though was not their reticence — most grownups were not forthcoming — but their invisibility. In my mind there was already such confusion between two categories commonly held to be opposites: the living and the dead. As for a third category, the ghosts in my storybooks were filmy, insubstantial beings who did not graze their knees or chase hens. The companions did not seem to fit into that group either; they existed in their own peculiar dimension.