Illumination Night - by Alice Hoffman (Paperback)

About the Book

Elizabeth is an elderly widow suffering from spells of fantasy and failing sight. Andre and Vonny are a young couple trying to make ends meet. Jody is a teenage runaway. On the island of Chilmark near Martha's Vineyard, they all come together. A "New York Times" Notable Book.

Book Synopsis

A modern chronicle of a marriage and a bittersweet exploration of an extraordinary passion from the New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic.

Beginning on the night of the Grand Illumination, a festival of lanterns held each summer on Martha's Vineyard, Illumination Night follows the lives of a young blond giant who is as beautiful as he is frightening; an old woman at the end of her life whose last mission is to save her granddaughter's soul; a family torn apart by a wife's fears and a husband's unrealized desires--and the high school girl who comes to Martha's Vineyard against her will, who steals husbands and cars, and who will bring everyone together in a web of yearning, sin, and ultimate redemption. Both riveting and reflective, this is a story of "parenthood and friendship, self-protection and generosity, dream and disillusionment" (Newsday) that brings to light the talent that has made Alice Hoffman an acclaimed bestselling author.

Review Quotes

Praise for Illumination Night

"Daringly mixing comedy with tragedy...[Hoffman] has created a narrative that somehow makes myth out of the sticky complexities of contemporary marriage...Her characters are branded onto one's memory."--The New York Times Book Review

"Vivid, convincing characters...uncommon insight."--People

"[A] bright constellation of characters...draws the reader into the dusky, dreamy world of Alice Hoffman."--St. Petersburg Times

"Alice Hoffman takes seemingly ordinary lives and lets us see and feel extraordinary things."--Amy Tan

"Not-so-delicate questions are raised in a wonderfully delicate way in Alice Hoffman's latest novel...Explorations of the tangled strands of parenthood and friendship, self-protection and generosity, dream and disillusionment are made achingly vivid by Hoffman's ability to ground them in the finely etched details of her characters' daily lives."--Newsday

"There is a cumulative power to Illumination Night that is wondrous...It's enough to make one search out other books by Alice Hoffman."--The Chicago Tribune

"Reading an authentic prose stylist of high order is an uncommon privilege."--The Boston Globe

About the Author

Alice Hoffman is the bestselling author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The Invisible Hour, The World That We Knew, Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic (A Reese's Book Club pick), Magic Lessons, The Book of Magic, Here on Earth (An Oprah's Book Club pick), and The Dovekeepers. She lives near Boston.