Illumination Night
- Author Alice Hoffman
- Narrator Suzanne Toren
- Publisher Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date 1 August 2014
- Run Time 7 hours and 48 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fiction: general and literary, Generational sagas.
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What to expect
Beginning on the night of the Grand Illumination, a festival of lanterns held each summer on Martha’s Vineyard, this novel is a modern chronicle of a marriage and a bittersweet exploration of an extraordinary passion. Illumination Night follows the lives of a young blond giant who is as beautiful as he is frightening; an old woman at the end of her life whose last mission is to save her granddaughter’s soul; a family torn apart by a wife’s fears and a husband’s unrealized desires; and the high school girl who comes to Martha’s Vineyard against her will, who steals husbands and cars, and who will bring everyone together in a web of yearning, sin, and ultimate redemption. Both riveting and reflective, this is a story that brings to light the talent that has made Alice Hoffman an acclaimed bestselling author.
Critics Review
u201cBy engaging her readersu2019 empathy so adroitly, Hoffman draws them into exposing themselves to the kind of painu2014the pain of commitmentu2014that haunts her story.u201d
u201cAlice Hoffmanu2026has enough power ofnempathy to make her characters matter to us. Daringly mixing comedy withntragedy, and the quotidian with the fabulous, she has created a narrative thatnsomehow makes myth out of the sticky complexities of contemporary marriageu2026Ms. Hoffman writes so simply about humannpassions that her characters are branded onto oneu2019s memory. At their mostnpassionate they hurl themselves down staircases, out of windows, in front ofnspeeding cars. One awakens from the dream of this novel with a memory of tryingnto catch them. In the light of the storyu2019s afterglow, one keeps on trying toncatch them.u201d
u201cThere is a cumulative power to Illumination Night that is wondrous.u201d
u201cHoffman hits bulls-eyes on the incomprehension between the young and the old, of the magic and pain of ordinary life. She is erotic and romanticu2026funnyu2026clever and humane.u201d
u201cExplorations of the tangled strands of parenthood and friendship, self-protection and generosity, dream and disillusionment are made achingly vivid by Hoffmanu2019s ability to ground them in the finely etched details of her charactersu2019 daily lives.u201d
u201cWith an eye for household details and respect for daily events, Hoffman unleashes the mythic forcefulness of ordinary life in this polished story of love and loneliness set on the island of Marthau2019s Vineyard.u201d
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