Lux: A Novel [Paperback]

Maria Flook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 2005

A searing, poignant, darkly comic novel set on Cape Cod by the author of the bestselling true crime story Invisible Eden.Young Alden Warrens husband has vanished without a trace. Her daily routine--working for the National Park Service at the Cape Cod National Seashore, volunteering to take care of a cantankerous old activist she met through Meals on Wheels, monitoring bird migration counts, and applying for a foster baby--provides many distractions and obstacles, but shes got bigger troubles as Miss Bride Interrupted. Alden is avidly courted but holds out emotionally--until Lux Davis, a handsome landscape worker and her husbands undetected killer, tracks her down. Lux is smitten with Alden, but his immediate problem, unknown to her, is how to dispose of the body. Lux and Alden bond strongly in the face of their mutual demons, past and current, creating a charged and magical love story. In the meantime, his secret is on the verge of being discovered as the law closes in behind him. Maria Flook finds valiant people within the working-class population of an off-season resort community. Although unsteady and disenfranchised, her characters emerge intact, buoyed by their love for one another and for the natural world, and portrayed by Flook with her signature mixture of high poetic seriousness and a ribald, picaresque sensibility (The New Yorker). Maria Flooks Invisible Eden (Broadway, 2003), a literary investigation of fashion writer and single mother Christa Worthingtons unsolved murder on Cape Cod, was a 2003 New York Times bestseller with over 75,000 copies sold. Maria Flook is the author of My Sister Life: The Story of My Sisters Disappearance (Broadway, 1999), which inspired Annie Proulx to call her one of the most powerful writers at work today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An iconoclastic cast of Cape Cod year-rounders peoples Flook's moody, intelligent novel. Alden Warren works for the National Park Service, counts birds for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, volunteers for Meals on Wheels and daily mourns her husband, a school teacher and dedicated environmentalist who vanished two years earlier. Monty was a known skirt-chaser, so authorities assume that he took off with a lively fellow lepidopterist. Alden herself is not without carnal impulses and succumbs to suitors—mostly unsuitable—who help her briefly forget Monty. The action accelerates steadily as handsome antihero Lux Davis stalks Alden even as he frets about his guilty secret involving her missing husband. Lux works for a nurseryman and has a genuine green thumb, along with a neurological disorder that he's suffered since childhood. Though occasionally too studied, Flook's baroque language—Cape Cod is "a chaotic, fiddlehead topography of dunes"—gives this noirish story a distinctive edge. Alternating between Rabelaisian comic realism and a Wordsworthian passion for nature, the novel provides the reader with a bumpy but enthralling ride.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The multitalented Flook is known for her edgy fiction (Family Night, 1993) and her meticulous reporting (Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod [BKL Je 1 & 15 03]). In her latest novel, Alden, who tracks wildlife for Cape Cod National Seashore and may be bipolar, is still distraught over her missing husband, Monty. Since Monty was a well-known philanderer, the police assume he has left his wife and have closed the case. Meanwhile, Lux, a talented landscape architect who suffers from sudden bouts of false paralysis, alternately stalks and assiduously courts Alden. He also seems to know far more about Monty than either Alden or the police. Flook seems to be aiming for a pitch-black comedy by setting Monty up as thoroughly unlikable, but she includes so many gruesome details about his demise that the premise is bound to make a few readers queasy. Her higher profile as a result of the success of Invisible Eden might spur demand, but her early fiction is a better bet. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; First Edition, First Printing edition (December 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316010693
• ISBN-13: 978-0316010696
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #851,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Characters with Bizarre Actions at Times But Worth a Read, May 3, 2005

By 

FictionAddiction.NET - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lux: A Novel (Hardcover)

Maria Flook takes the reader on a trip through the turbulent and dysfunctional life of Alden Warren. Set on the Cape, Lux introduces Alden, an apologetic naturalist, who is slowly growing mad as she deals with the disappearance of her husband and her intense desire for a child and Lux Davis, a local gardener dealing with nightmares from his past, whose revelations may destroy their newfound relationship.

Flook illustrates the underbelly of Cape life through Alden and Lux's romance, which is peppered with bizarre displays of affection on the parts of the lovers and alternating scenes of how the two deal with the other lovers whom they have entertained. The reader learns of Lux's unconventional living arrangements with his sister-in-law and of the intense longings and emptiness that fill Alden's every waking hour.

Unwilling to let go of her husband, yet also unwilling to let opportunity pass her by, Alden's conflicting motives about life, love and children begin to stack into an unstable tower of emotions. The reader follows Alden's journey through her marriage, with revelations that will redeem her...or destroy her.

Intense scenes of almost-discovery and near-confession are insufficient to prepare the reader for what comes next. Lux eventually finds a sort of redemption, while Alden whips herself into a frenzy of misdemeanors, leading to a chilling climax that leaves the reader wanting more.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flook's brilliant mix of poetry and roguish characters, October 29, 2004

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lux: A Novel (Hardcover)

As The National Seashore's bookstore clerk, Alden Warren focuses on stranded sea turtles and other innocents while confronting an ugly past: the disappearance of a philandering husband two years prior. Struggling to remain unaffected, she lusts after a married man while desperately trying to adopt a local foster baby living the neglected life. But everyone in town --- including the social worker she works with to gain the child --- knows Alden's interests are carefully chosen distractions from her husband tragedy. She can't get a break.

Then Alden's diversions give way to a real relationship with offbeat landscaper Lux Davis, whose wild intelligence she finds congenially refreshing. Their intense attraction results in a series of reckless adventures involving dumping deceased animals in the cars of those who malign Alden: the married man who, ultimately, can't take "no" for an answer and the social worker who can't take "yes" (I want this child) for an answer. Unbeknownst to Alden, Lux has his own morbid past surrounding her husband's vanishing.

Lux, or "Light" --- as defined by Alden's best friend, an elderly volunteer named Hyram (another well-chosen diversion) --- is symbolic. Downtrodden with a neurological condition causing him to "freeze," Lux desires Alden because she fulfills his idea of light: love with another misfit who can accept an eccentric disorder. Likewise, he represents her nirvana. The irony is in their romance's backdrop, an unmerciful, stormy ocean environment involving murder. Equally visited by inner demons related to the husband's disappearance and childhood trauma, Lux and Alden identify via inner and outer climates.

It is a rare writer who can mix poetry with roguish characters. Maria Flook does this brilliantly. Her passages, even when describing a dead turtle being belted into a car, remain ethereal. But it is a bestselling writer who accomplishes Flook's evanescence while prioritizing plot. Flook doesn't quite succeed. Many scenarios are dreamlike, diverging from the story.

An exquisite writer, Flook has been commended for her sharp, Woody Allen-like humor: In recalling one scene, a customer-weary Alden gives a new homeowner more information than is bargained for by telling the customer that the area's damp air causes year-round sinus problems. Here's hoping Flook capitalizes more on such funny witticisms!

--- Reviewed by Sara Webb Quest

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A charmer, October 19, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lux: A Novel (Hardcover)

Alden Warren lives year round in Cape Cod where she works at the National Park Service's Cape Cod National Seashore Visitor Center. Her mother neglected her as a child while her father spent more time in jail than with his family. Two years ago her husband Monty vanished; everyone assumes he left either to escape Alden or found a new female. His leaving has left his spouse even more imbalanced in terms of relationships except for her birds. Even with her failure with her "loved" ones, she yearns for a child, but unbeknownst to her the state sees her as poor choice.

Alden sees a car accident, rescuing the infant child of local porn star Layla. She dreams of raising the baby who is with the state. Meanwhile landscaper Lux Davis works at fixing the shrubbery damaged by Layla's accident. He desperately wants Alden, but makes no move because he feels guilty. While driving a school bus under the influence, he killed and buried Monty at the sight of the damage shrubbery he is fixing.

Cape Cod in many ways steals the show from a weird relationship drama in which the prime couple is just starting to come together, but ghosts especially Monty stand in their way. The story line hooks the reader mostly because of the scenery, but also whether Lux and Alden can find each other. However, while they struggle, fans will find no one affable to care what happens to them yet they will still enjoy this tale.

Harriet Klausner