The Lightness
Emily Temple, 2020
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062905321
Summary
A stylish, stunningly precise, and suspenseful meditation on adolescent desire, female friendship, and the female body that shimmers with rage, wit, and fierce longing—an audacious, darkly observant, and mordantly funny literary debut.
One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned.
Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother—a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial—Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center.
Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia refers to as "Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls."
Soon, she finds herself drawn into the company of a close-knit trio of girls determined to transcend their circumstances, by any means necessary. Led by the elusive and beautiful Serena, and her aloof, secretive acolytes, Janet and Laurel, the girls decide this is the summer they will finally achieve enlightenment—and learn to levitate, to defy the weight of their bodies, to experience ultimate lightness.
But as desire and danger intertwine, and Olivia comes ever closer to discovering what a body—and a girl—is capable of, it becomes increasingly clear that this is an advanced and perilous practice, and there’s a chance not all of them will survive.
Set over the course of one fateful summer that unfolds like a fever dream, The Lightness juxtaposes fairy tales with quantum physics, cognitive science with religious fervor, and the passions and obsessions of youth with all of these, to explore concepts as complex as faith and as simple as loving people—even though you don’t, and can’t, know them at all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1985-86 (?)
• Where—Syracuse, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., MIddlebury College; M.F.A., University of Virginia
• Awards—Henfield Prize
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Emily Temple was born in Syracuse, New York. She earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA in fiction from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow and the recipient of a Henfield Prize.
Her short fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Indiana Review, Fairy Tale Review, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is a senior editor at Literary Hub. This is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The breeziest book… in a good way…. A smart but nervous girl who maintains a propulsive inner monologue that evokes Emma Cline’s The Girls and a group of eccentric and bizarre young people that channels Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
WSJ Magazine
An elegant and entertaining debut novel. A mystery disguised as a coming-of-age story…. This is one of those books that breaks your heart when it’s over.
Philadelphia Inquirer
[An] engrossing debut, by turns smart thriller and nuanced coming-of-age story…. While the frequent asides on fairy tales, etymology, and various intellectual concepts can feel distracting…, the lush, intelligent prose perfectly captures…adolescent yearning.
Publishers Weekly
Temple weaves Buddhist practice, rumor, philosophy, and teenage sexual longing into a story that is both deep and compelling. Her characters are complicated and conflicted, immersed in the throes of teenage angst and hormones. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
(Starred review) Four teenage girls attempt to unlock the secrets of levitation in this unsettling debut…. [A] complex, psychological study of a young woman haunted by her past—and her capacity to hunger for violence and self-destruction. A dark, glittering fable about the terror of desire.
Kirkus Reviews
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