The Light Source - by Kim Magowan (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The relationship between Heather Katchadourian and Julie Howe is complicated. Over the past two decades, they've been just about everything to each other: boarding school roommates, best friends, lovers, rivals, even co-parents--both together and estranged. Will they find their way back to each other, or have they inflicted too much damage along the way? Reminiscent of the work of Meg Wolitzer, and narrated by Heather, Julie, their lifelong friends, partners, and children, The Light Source is a prismatic portrayal of what everlasting modern love truly looks like and reminds us that what's meant-to-be becomes harder to define with age.

Review Quotes

"...these delicate, thoughtful stories are devoted to unpacking the intricacies of infidelity..." -Kristen Roupenian, The New York Times Book Review on Undoing

"A deeply honest, emotional powerhouse of a debut by Kim Magowan, The Light Source is told through the individual voices of boarding school friends whose lives and relationships interweave and unravel by turns. At its core, two women share a fragile, complicated love marred by denial and betrayal. It is because Magowan's people are so real, so flawed and funny and smart and hurting, that they compel us so. This novel brilliantly and movingly demonstrates the power of forgiveness and self-acceptance, and that which we so often forget: How by opening the one door we've always stubbornly refused to, we are at last rewarded with light." -Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018

"The Light Source so exquisitely illuminates the elusive natures of both love and truth. I was riveted by Magowan's storytelling from the opening pages to the last, as each successive character both built their own narrative and also placed little charges of dynamite in the ones that had come before. An endlessly wise and devastatingly human book." -Robin Black, author of Life Drawing