Illumination Night
Alice Hoffman, 1987
Penguin Group USA
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425183267
Summary
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 of parenthood and friendship, self-protection and generosity, dream and disillusionment. (From the publisher.)