Illumination Night (1987) by Alice Hoffman

1001 Novels: A Library of America

Illumination Night (1987)

by Alice Hoffman

Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Massachusetts:  20/30

    Really in my "tedious slog" era of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America project.  This seemingly never ending Audiobook (only 224 pages in print) took me literally months to get through because I could normally listen only in 15 minute segments.   The most incredible part about Illumination Night vis a vis its place in the 1001 Novels project is that this book also features a giant who lives on the Cape!  The two books are only separated by a few hours drive (well boat ride since this book is on the Vineyard and the McKracken book is on the mainland).  

   Of course, The Giant's House  is ALL about the giant and here the giant is a relatively minor player.  The main character is Vonny, a 20 year mother of one married to Andre- a brooding motorcycle mechanic/restorer and mother of Simon, who is a tiny little boy.  They move to the Vineyard year round at the beginning book and meet their next door neighbor Elizabeth Renny, an elderly widow and her granddaughter Jody, a bored, horny 17 year old who is sent as a seasonal assistant to granny but then connives her way into year round residency.

    I was almost personally offended by the characters in this book and their problems.  Particularly Vonny, who inexplicably becomes agoraphobic half-way through the book after she gets into a fight with her Dad.   I am not exaggerating- she goes into New York, has an argument with her Dad- from whom she is ALREADY estranged, goes back to the Cape and can't leave her house.  Andre nails the jail bait next door but slides off the hook when Jody becomes intimidate with the Giant who lives down the road.

   Basically once Vonny manifests her agoraphobia I couldn't stop thinking about how only the privilege can suffer from a disease where you have to stay inside your nice, safe, bourgeois house.  What happens to agoraphobics who live in a hut in the third world?  In true literary fiction fashion, Vonny does have a livelihood that she can do from her house- she's a potter.   Anyway I found the whole thing ridiculous and stupid.   And I'm so tired of these books about sad housewives and their troubled lives raiding children as privileged white people in America.  Boo hoo.  Susan Straight has picked a lot of those books so far- roughly a hundred books in I think.