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Paddyfield.com
More reviews by Rosie Milne
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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Facing The Light by Adele Geras
ADELE GERAS is a prolific author of children's books, and books for young adults. FACING THE LIGHT is her first novel for adults, and it contains plenty to admire. It is commercial women's fiction, but it is miles away from the cliches of any easily identifiable sub-genre. Geras's themes are dark, and interesting, and genuinely feminist.
FACING THE LIGHT unfolds against the backdrop of preparations for a party in honour of Leonora, who is about to turn seventy-five. Leonora is the daughter of Ethan Walsh, a famous Edwardian painter. She is fiercely protective of her father's memory, and of his paintings. Under the terms of Ethan's will, these paintings must be kept at the family home, Willow Court, a grand English county house with splendid grounds, including a lake, which looms large in many of the characters' consciousnesses.
Leonora's entire family gathers at Willow Court to celebrate her birthday. She has two middle-aged daughters, Gwen and Rilla, whom she raised alone after her beloved husband was killed in a car accident. Gwen and Rilla have provided her with a whole clutch of grandchildren, and a step-grandchild. One of her grandsons, Efe, has even provided her with a great-grandchild, courtesy of his wife, Fiona. Leonora's ancient, semi-senile nanny is still alive, and will attend the party. Another non-family member is also present -- Sean is a television director who is making a documentary about Ethan Walsh.
Geras has a large cast of characters, but they are all distinct, and she handles them very skillfully. I never became confused, or forgot who somebody was, or how one character was related to another. She is also extremely skillful in her handling of time. Her novel explores the way the past is prologue to the present, and she seamlessly weaves between the two, over a span of nearly a century.
Geras' characters quickly become caught up in the unraveling of three family mysteries. All three concern the relationships between mothers and their children, two are built around deaths, one around sex. And then there's art. FACING THE LIGHT is a book alive to the visual world, filled with rich descriptions of fabrics, interiors and landscapes. This painterly sensibility echoes through Geras' central mystery, which itself concerns art, and artificiality.
I think unpredictability in a novel is an over-rated value, so it did not bother me unduly that I was able to guess the outcome of Gears' central mystery almost from the beginning of the book, which was perhaps a little earlier than she intended, although, by the time the denouement comes, it is clearly not intended to be a surprise to the reader, only to the characters.
Geras' second mystery concerns the precise circumstances of the drowning of a child, Rilla's five year old son, Markie. This plot line explores ideas about responsibility -- the responsibility of adults, and also the responsibility of children. The final mystery concerns the lingering effects of tension between Leonora and Rilla, at the time when Rilla was first exploring sex. The death of a child, and sexual tension between mothers and daughters, are both challenging and interesting subjects -- Geras was brave to take them on.
These three mysteries are interwoven with various love stories, falling-out-of-love stories, shag stories, and an account of contemporary domestic violence, so FACING THE LIGHT is never in danger of losing momentum. On the other hand, I never got the feeling that events were whizzing past at a dizzying speed.
This is a book set in the west, about western art, and western characters, but Geras' focus on the family, and the way family members look out for each other, will surely resonate with readers in Asia. Geras' refreshing respect for, and interest in, her older characters should also appeal in our region; a Hong Kong person, for example, should have no problem comparing Leonora to a formidable Chinese matriarch. Geras's sense of the way the dead press on the living is also something Asians will find familiar.
Whether gweilo or Chinese, gaijin or Japanese, farang or Thai, I recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys family sagas, psychological mysteries, or domestic dramas with a touch of the gothic.
Rosie Milne
22/06/2003
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Rosie Milne is a writer living in Hong Kong. Her first novel How To Change Your Life was published by Pan Macmillan in May 2002.
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