Books: “How The Light Gets In” by Joyce Maynard
I hadn’t read much of Joyce Maynard’s work, but what I did read, I liked. Her 1972 NYT Magazine article “Growing Up Old in the 1960s” struck home when I read it as a college freshman. Her novel “To Die For” was made into an amusing 1995 movie starring Nicole Kidman. OTOH, it seems the whole world (except me) knew about and subsequently pooh-pooled her memoir about her relationship with a much older J.D. Salinger, which started when she was at Yale.
So I approached Maynard’s new novel “How The Light Gets In” with mixed feelings. Seems like I had nothing to fear. It’s pretty damned great.
The protagonist is Eleanor, a freelance journalist/greeting card designer/children’s book author living in small-town New Hampshire. Although she has a successful, lucrative career—selling the movie rights of her books brings in the loot— she’d always thought of herself primarily as a wife and mother. Unfortunately, she has never fully succeeded in either of those roles.
Her good-looking but indolent husband Cam left her for the family’s babysitter when her three children were still small. As a result of his neglect, the youngest child Toby wandered off one day, almost drowned and suffered permanent brain damage.
The book opens in 2010 at a memorial for Cam for which Eleanor has returned. She will be assuming responsibility for the care of Toby, now a grown man. The novel’s trajectory covers the following 14 years, touching on events like the Trump election, climate change, the pandemic, and school violence.
But what makes the book special is Eleanor’s desire to find her own identity amidst all this tumult. Is she her “real” self when she worries herself sick over her kids 24/7? Or when she pushes all that aside and has a fear-of-flying fling with a dashing Antarctic explorer she meets at a book fair?
All this would seem to be ripe material for a soap opera or for parody. But “Light” is neither. It covers real-life issues like later-life love, parental alienation, and steadfast friendship. The tone is warm and sensitive rather than snarky and sophisticated.
As I see from her posts on FB, Maynard has faced some tough breaks in life, including the death of her spouse Jim from pancreatic cancer. I found the insights she gained and shared in “How The Light Gets In” (the title btw is a lyric from a Leonard Cohen song) profound. Hope you agree.
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