Customer Reviews

House Lights: A Novel

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Sometimes it is only upon reflection in our more mature years that it is possible to realistically assess the destruction of innocence, peeling away the layers of denial that once seemed so vital in interpreting family dramas. To review your past, your family, with an unerring and deliberate eye is a task fraught with danger, stripping fact from fiction, the threads of truth tangled in childhood memory. When Beatrice Fisher-Hart arranges to meet with her long-estranged maternal grandmother, Margaret Fourcey, a former actress of some repute, she believes it is only to further the dream of becoming an actress; but as Beatrice attends her grandmother's evening salons, the gatherings become more than opportunity, rather a place of psychic nourishment and reconnection with a woman she has never known. Beatrice's parents, both therapists, Dr. and Dr. Fisher-Hart, combine their offices and living quarters in their Boston home, but the genteel façade of professionalism is under assault, Beatrice's father, Jeremy, accused of sexual harassment.

Closing ranks, the Fisher-Hart's present their usual calm mien to the world; prompted by the shocking revelation of Jeremy Hart's indiscretion, Beatrice suddenly remembers an incident from her childhood, questioning, little by little, the rarified and controlled atmosphere of her environment; later she learns of other such shameful incidents, at nineteen barely able to fathom the significance of this new information. A revolt against family secrets slowly emerges as Beatrice joins a theatre workshop directed by Hale Rubin, one of the accomplished members of Margaret's salon. Increasingly, Beatrice views her life as a series of acts, achingly self-conscious as the house lights "suddenly illuminate the larger reality in which a play was being staged." On a painful journey of self-discovery that demands an honest recounting of family dynamics, Beatrice must at last acknowledge her parents' feet of clay and the role of a daughter in transition to adulthood, flirting with a serious romance that calls into question everything she has believed about herself.

The cultivated, civil atmosphere of Beatrice's relationship with her parents is intimately examined, doubts surfacing about the carefully hoarded memories that have defined her existence in a well-ordered world gone out of kilter with her Jeremy's intemperate actions. Although much of the novel seems too self-conscious, too perfectly sculpted, Hager injects the final pages with an immediacy and authenticity of surprising depth, the jagged emotions of a broken man who cannot ask for help, the uneasy peace between mothers and daughters, the healing power of unconditional love, and the winding path through a wilderness that has engulfed this small family. Beatrice's coming-of-age is handled with delicate precision, through the pitfalls of the past to a more navigable present, a plunge into the world of the theater and a marriage that is outside convention. Treading carefully, Beatrice takes to heart the hard lessons of love and loss and the surprising freedom of following her heart no matter what the cost. Luan Gaines/2007

Cohen is an underappreciated talent who has delicate, subtle powers of observation and who narrates with brilliant clarity the inner ways of the heart. This is a book about self-discipline and recklessness, about maturity as both a great loss and a great achievement, and it is written with almost unberable tenderness and kindess.

When the house lights go on, the magic and mystery of a play are somewhat diminished, not unlike what can occur in the real world when a veil is lifted. In fact, in this eye-opening novel, the long-cultivated, perfect image of the Fisher-Hart family of Boston is essentially torn away. It is Beatrice, their 20-year-old daughter, who is most affected. So much of her life has been wrapped up in the respect that colleagues and the community have held for her psychological therapist parents and in their refined life style.

Bea is suddenly totally adrift. Not only is she disappointing her parents by foregoing college to give acting a try, but at the same time that she has reached out to her well-known actress grandmother Margaret Fourcey, it becomes known that a credible claim of sexual harassment has been made against her father by a graduate student under his supervision, with predictable consequences. The magnanimity of Maggie essentially saves Bea, even though her mother has shunned any contact through the years. Bea sits in on wide-ranging discussions involving Maggie's theater friends, fueling her interest in acting, and furthermore learns of more disturbing secrets about her family, including her father.

While Bea does manage to achieve a modicum of success in the world of acting over the next twenty years, this entire story is most concerned with the lasting impact on a family of troubling developments. There are so many questions. Does one inevitably over compensate in some way? What are the possibilities of reconciliation? In the author's telling, primarily through Bea but also Maggie, it is a lifetime's work to regain the stability that at one time was simply assumed. It's not really much of an option to simple forego the effort - a large hole in one's heart is generally the result.

In any event, this novel is a sensitive, insightful look at what can happen to a family, especially to a sheltered daughter, when their idyllic world comes crashing down.

The other reviews say it all. This is an amazing book in which you can get lost. My mother was from Boston and I felt a real connection to the characters in this book. I got it cheap on Kindle but would not have been disappointed to pay more. Beautiful prose and descriptions.

I really enjoyed your book, House Lights. It was one of the most well-written books I have ever read. It seems that family life often does come full circle, and I found it interesting in how you were able to write in such detail about how that happens for your main character, Bea. I have so many favorite parts, but one of my favorite phrases you used was in the last part of the book where you were describing Bea's thoughts in reflecting on her memories of her father..."whether it be memory's dirty trick of distortion or maturity's gift of clarity". I love that description so much that it should be a refrigerator magnet! Great writing! I look forward to reading more of your work. -AnnMarie Craven (yes, from Nyack)