And the Dark Sacred Night
A Novel
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3.7 • 46 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From the National Book Award–winning author of Three Junes, a "tender, insightful, and winning exploration of the modern family and the infinite number of shapes it can take" (People).
Kit Noonan is an unemployed art historian with twins to support, a mortgage to pay, and a frustrated wife who insists that, to move forward, Kit must first confront a crucial mystery about his past. Born to a single teenage mother, he has never known the identity of his biological father.
Kit’s search begins with his onetime stepfather, Jasper, a take-no-prisoners Vermont outdoorsman, and ultimately leads him to Fenno McLeod, the beloved protagonist of Glass's award-winning novel Three Junes. Immersing readers in a panorama that stretches from Vermont to the tip of Cape Cod, And the Dark Sacred Night is an unforgettable novel about the youthful choices that steer our destinies, the necessity of forgiveness, and the risks we take when we face down the shadows of our past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Glass's uneven new novel (after The Widower's Tale) centers around 40-year-old Kit Noonan, an unemployed college professor who against his mother Daphne's wishes wants to track down Malachy Burns, the father he never knew (and a character from Glass's 2002 National Book Award -winning debut Three Junes). At the urging of his wife Sandra, Kit turns to his stepfather Jasper for advice on the matter. Though Jasper is reticent to betray Daphne's confidence, he provides Kit with information that ultimately leads Kit to find his grandmother, Lucinda Burns. Glass uses the limited third person viewpoint to get in the heads of five very different characters, and she does it skillfully. Their disparate worlds are fleshed out in great detail, but though Kit is the character pushing the plot forward, he is the least intriguing of the five. Glass's portrayal of Lucinda is by far her strongest; the grief she feels is visible through the family dynamic of her and her other children. Such sections ring with emotional truth while others feel precious. Glass produces spot-on descriptions: one character spends most nights in bed " awake for half an hour or more, his mind, hawk-like, circling and re-circling his life from above." This imperfect work will still reward loyal readers.
Customer Reviews
Disappointing "third June"
I loved the first two sections of Three Junes. However, the unbelievable coincidence of the meeting of character was just that, unbelievable and also unexplained.
A snooze
I've read and enjoyed all Julia Glass' previous books. This is definitely the weakest. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters or what happened to them. That I could put the book down with 10 pages left and go to sleep pretty much says it all.