A child dies: how to make sense of the world? A Contrary review by Cynthia Newberry Martin  It’s difficult to say which would be worse: having to make sense of the world after the death of your own child or after causing the death of someone else’s child. In Elizabeth Diamond’s debut novel, An Accidental Light, Lisa Jenkins’ thirteen-year old daughter Laura is hit by a car and killed. Police officer Jack Philips, on his way home from work, is the one driving the car. Jack and Lisa alternate as narrators. The novel begins inside Jack’s head. There’s clock time where seconds mount up to minutes and minutes to hours. Where day changes to night and weeks build to months and months to a year… The time most of us live in. Then there’s the other sort. It has no limits. It reels you backwards without warning, spins you young again on a whim. It can be triggered by anything: a fragment of music, a scent on the air. Or a child moving in a blue school uniform in the rain. It claims you in dreams, on the borders of sleep, even in your waking moments when you think you’re safe. A child moved out suddenly from the rear of a bus, ran in a blue smudge of uniform through the misted rain, moved out from that forward linear tick-tock time into the other, where she’s caught forever, like a broken leaf in a whirlpool current. The first shift in narration, which doesn’t come until Chapter 9, is the only one that is abrupt. The name Lisa appears over the chapter number, and with that we have a new I and a new you. Jack’s you being his therapist; and Lisa’s, for the most part, being Laura. After a powerful beginning, both in language and in story, the narrative relaxes before it builds again. It is in the initial chapters narrated by Lisa, about a third of the way into the novel, that language and story again combine in mounting tension, leaving no space between word and breath. …as I walk down the path and through the gate into the street, into my own future again, my limbs unglue themselves, the clockwork of my life is set into forward motion…. At first, it might seem as if there is too much symmetry between Jack and Lisa. Each had a parent die when they were young, and each is estranged from the living parent. Yet, as the story moves forward, it becomes clear that it is because each is cut off from the past and is living only half a life that Laura’s death brings them together. “Solitude itself,” May Sarton writes in Plant Dreaming Deep, “is a way of waiting for the inaudible and the invisible to make itself felt.” An Accidental Light is an interior novel, with Jack and Lisa each alone a good bit of the time. Fertile ground for the dead child Laura. Just as the reader recoils from the idea of a ghost, so does Jack. I knew it happened, but I tried to tell myself that it hadn’t. Diamond weaves the ghost child so tightly into the fabric of the story that after a while, even I believe in her. Note the details: The second time Jack sees her, she isn’t wearing her school uniform, but jeans and a pink anorak. Then Lisa sees her wearing the same thing. The corroboration: A Medium brings a message that only Laura could know. Her father admits to seeing a blue shadow. A child feels an unexplained push. Diamond’s prose is lyrical and replete with telling details. She uses repetition of images and phrases to stitch together the narrative just as when we struggle to make sense of something we often repeat ourselves—either until we get the story right or until we can make ourselves believe it. In the end, Lisa hopes that Laura is now in a world that makes sense. Where you can see the whole pattern, the entire tapestry, instead of an isolated stitch of it, so that even a child dying suddenly can make sense.... This is what Elizabeth Diamond gives us with An Accidental Light—the entire tapestry. Cynthia Newberry Martin lives in Columbus, Georgia. Her first novel, The Painting Story, was a finalist in the 2008 Emory University Novel Contest. Visit her blog, Catching Days. Index of Reviews...>http://catchingdays.cynthianewberrymartin.com/Reviews.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1

© 2009  |  all rights reserved

about us  |  xml feed  |  Contrary ® is a registered trademark of Contrary Magazine  |  donate $1  | contact us

http://www.contrarymagazine.com/
COMMENTARY | POETRY | FICTION | CHICAGO ARCHIVES | REVIEWS | ABOUT | SUBMISSIONS | ALERTS | BOOKSHOP | SUPPORT | CONTACT |Archives.htmlReviews.htmlContrary.htmlSubmissions.htmlSubscriptions.htmlBookshop.htmlWritersFund.htmlContact.htmlshapeimage_4_link_0shapeimage_4_link_1shapeimage_4_link_2shapeimage_4_link_3shapeimage_4_link_4shapeimage_4_link_5shapeimage_4_link_6shapeimage_4_link_7

An Accidental Light

Elizabeth Diamond

2009, Other Press

Buy this book...>

SPRING 2009 COVER GIRLS ON BIKES TRACY OLIVER TALES OF THE DEVIL’S WIFE CARMEN LAU SILENT LAMBS D.E. FREDD EPITHALAMIUM KARA CANDITO CITY OF THE MILLION LIGHTS RE’LYNN HANSEN SALUMAIO PAUL REDMAN WHEN I SAY LOVE MEREDITH MARTINEZ PREPARE TO BELIEVE DANE CERVINE PART OF THE MOON GREGORY LAWLESS ON GOYA STREET EDWARD MC WHINNEY FROM THE EDITOR REVIEWS ROBYN SCHIFF PATRICK DEELEY ELIZABETH DIAMOND DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN LAUREN GROFF ACHY OBEJAS JIM HARRISON JOHN ADAMS LAURA MILLER V.M. YEATES WILHELMINA COLE HOLLADAY THOMAS RAY CROWELSpring-2009.htmlBikes.htmlBikes.htmlDevils.htmlDevils.htmlLambs.htmlLambs.htmlEpithalamium.htmlEpithalamium.htmlLights.htmlLights.htmlSalumaio.htmlSalumaio.htmlLove.htmlLove.htmlBelieve.htmlBelieve.htmlMoon.htmlMoon.htmlGoya.htmlGoya.htmlBrandie.htmlReviews.htmlSchiff.htmlDeeley.htmlMueenuddin.htmlGroff.htmlObejas.htmlHarrison.htmlAdams.htmlMIller.htmlYeates.htmlHolladay.htmlBrandie.htmlshapeimage_5_link_0shapeimage_5_link_1shapeimage_5_link_2shapeimage_5_link_3shapeimage_5_link_4shapeimage_5_link_5shapeimage_5_link_6shapeimage_5_link_7shapeimage_5_link_8shapeimage_5_link_9shapeimage_5_link_10shapeimage_5_link_11shapeimage_5_link_12shapeimage_5_link_13shapeimage_5_link_14shapeimage_5_link_15shapeimage_5_link_16shapeimage_5_link_17shapeimage_5_link_18shapeimage_5_link_19shapeimage_5_link_20shapeimage_5_link_21shapeimage_5_link_22shapeimage_5_link_23shapeimage_5_link_24shapeimage_5_link_25shapeimage_5_link_26shapeimage_5_link_27shapeimage_5_link_28shapeimage_5_link_29shapeimage_5_link_30shapeimage_5_link_31shapeimage_5_link_32shapeimage_5_link_33shapeimage_5_link_34