Overview: Three Legs in the Evening comes from the Sphinx’s riddle in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus is asked what creature walks on all fours in the morning, on two legs in the afternoon, and three in the evening. The answer, which Oedipus gets right, is Man, who crawls as a baby, walks upright as a man, and leans on a cane in his old age.

Received wisdom, in other words, can be unreliable.

Verdict: Enter the story of Sally B, an over-sixty widow about to retire from her successful greeting card business in the aftermath of 9/11. She has a devoted family who relies on her wit and wisdom. But suddenly all hell breaks loose — her best friend dies, she falls into an open grave and she breaks her ankle.

As this is happening, her children’s marital lives are unraveling, her grandchildren are in turmoil, and a man she has known from a time before comes back in her life. Taking place over a year, this is a story of love in a time of horror, as well as the profound and surprising ways in which everything Sally thought she knew changes.

Sexy, funny and heart-wrenching, and much like Kent Haruf’s Our Souls At Night, Three Legs in the Evening speaks about people running out of steam, running out of time, and finding solace and wisdom even in the finality of all that. A life carefully built can crumble in a moment, but what happens then? Sally B. plays it out as best she can.

The third novel from author Bette Ann Moskowitz, Three Legs in the Evening is one of the most down to earth, profoundly grounded within our own day-to-day, ordinary, one might say, existences, all be it one tinged with endearing sarcasm and quick wittiness, that I myself have had the pleasure to engross myself into from the off for a long, long time.

I mean, just the whole prose on the lead up and actual event of our central character, Sally, falling onto her recently deceased best friend Susie at her funeral (kinda sorta, for she was still in a coffin), thus breaking her ankle, is as an absorbing a detailed moment as you could ever hope to read on the subject to hand.

Did she fall or was she pushed? is the obvious question, but, and without giving the entire plot away, trust me when I say that she didn’t give her best friend one last embrace (kinda sorta) on purpose!

Chock full of real life experiences all woven together within a smorgasbord of dutifully crafted issues and hurdles, such as medical, divorce, sex and more, what Bette has done here is not only beautifully shown us these aforementioned three legs of life, but moreover walks us by the hand, at a very congenial pace, through the latter stages of life.

At all times done so in a heartwarming and yet diligent way, Sally is someone you will sooner than later end up siding with amongst all the incoming battles she has to fight, her wit, her annoyances, her sharp-tongue, clearly an attribute to how she survives - both physically and mentally.

About The Author - Bette Ann Moskowitz is a published author of two novels, a memoir, a non-fiction tale of aging and institutional advocacy, and a non-fiction narrative about aging and ageism. For several years she wrote a lifestyle column for a regional newspaper in the Hudson Valley, where she presently lives.

Her website has samples of her previous work ( www.betteannmoskowitz.com).

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