IN THE GLOAMING affirms Dark's masterful storytelling skills. Dark's fictional terrain is the secrets, estrangements and losses at the core of her characters' lives. In Maniacs, two very different sisters love the same man- one stormily; the other with a steady hidden passion. In Close, a young father-to-be visits his childhood home and contemplates escape from his wife and the disapointments of his own father's life. By turns dark, funny and sad, IN THE GLOAMING fulfills the promise of an important new voice in American literature.