This little book started as a short story in the New Yorker, and it still retains the short story's honed, compact style. Events are told in scenes that are more sketches than paintings. Some characters' names are never known (the girl who is the main character being one of them), while other names are repeated frequently (the girl's mother Mary's name comes up often, though we don't meet Mary until the end). The entire story, especially the last few paragraphs, is both bitter and sweet. I think the girl, who has learned what a loving family (and especially a loving father) is like, will be OK. What do you think? I loved that book. It tackles the unspoken so well. A girl from a big and poor family is sent for a holiday to a well off middle aged family with no children. The relationship between the two families is not clear. There are a lot of facts about both families that are passed in indirect and almost hear say way in the book. For instance, we learn about the foster family loss of son from a gossipy neighbour. I admired the delicate description of emotions experienced during that summer by the girl and her almost foster parents. The author managed to steer clear from black and white characters and allowed us to build our own picture of characters complexity and depth of their feelings.My favourite scene is when the foster father takes the girl for a walk by the beach after she learnt about their deceased son. The tenderness of this moment and his huge joy of having a child in the house is touching. The same as his comment about the girl who "carried him" along the beach (as his footprints disappeared in the sand on the way back).
What do You think about Les Trois Lumières (2010)?
Court récit mais très puissant et évocateur.
—abatson13
Simply beautiful and throat-grabbing stuff.
—jessbargen
