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- Radiance Reviewed By Sandra Shwayder Sanchez Of Bookpleasures.com
Radiance Reviewed By Sandra Shwayder Sanchez Of Bookpleasures.com
- By Sandra Shwayder Sanchez
- Published May 15, 2011
- GENERAL FICTION REVIEWS
Sandra Shwayder Sanchez
Reviewer Sandra Shwayder Sanchez: Sandra is
a retired attorney and co-founder of a small non-profit publishing
collective: The Wessex Collective with whom she has published two short fiction collections
(A Mile in These Shoes and Three Novellas) and one
novel, Stillbird.
Her most recent novel, The Secret of A Long Journey is soon to be released by Floricanto Press in April 2012 and her first novel, The Nun, originally published by Plain View Press in 1992 is being  reissued in a 2nd Edition with additional material by PVP in March 2012.
Click Here To Purchase Radiance: A Novel
Author: Louis B. Jones
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
ISBN: 978-1-58243-736-1
This 220 page novel tracks
the thoughts of a father, Mark Perdue, on a three day
vacation with his teen age daughter, Carlotta. The “vacation”
is actually a pricey “Celebrity Fantasy Vacation” package in
which teenagers are promised three days and two nights of “the rock
star lifestyle” (musical talent not required). As it turns
out the teenagers being treated to this $5,000 long weekend in Los
Angeles may be from wealthy families but they all have some problems
they are seeking to escape: a divorce, a parent’s alcoholism, or in
the case of Carlotta, anger and guilt over her parents’ decision to
terminate her mother’s planned mid life pregnancy when they learn
that the fetus is badly defective and would require feeding tubes
just to survive a short period of time. Sixteen year old Carlotta
agrees with the decision at first but then decides that she would
have preferred to give up her own education to take care of the baby
(mother, Audrey, is an attorney).
Despite the 3rd person
narrative, the novel has the introspective quality of a long interior
monologue. Mark’s voice has a consistent self-dismissive irony
apparently meant to ward off a more intense despondency. Mark
feels professionally inadequate. He is a scientist but feels like he
is stagnating in his field. He also feels attracted to the young
woman who escorts the rock stars around L.A for a weekend. In
fact he feels like he really loves her and it appears that she is
likewise attracted to him but, thankfully, the closest they actually
come to any kind of physical encounter is the Heimlich maneuver.
Although it says quite specifically on page 101 that Mark is ten
years older than this woman, one gets the feeling throughout the book
that there is a much bigger age difference.
The main
focus of the story is when Carlotta takes off with another rock star
pretender, Bodie who is a handsome, “intense” & athletic
young man paralyzed from the waist down (if you think someone in a
wheel chair cannot be “athletic” I recommend the film
Murderball). They cause everyone else a great deal of concern
when they disappear to find their way to the Hollywood sign (he wants
to touch it) and he falls into a ravine. Since getting up there to
the Hollywood sign involves trespassing, the two kids and Mark who
has gone to rescue Bodie when Lotta finally turns her cell phone back
on to call her father for help, all end up in jail for several hours.
This is the setting for Mark to have discussions first with Lotta
about her mother’s abortion and Bodie’s utopian
philosophies and then with Bodie himself about physics and
Bodie’s philosophies. Bodie has interesting things to say
about how history will view present society. Mark is primarily
interested in what kind of influence Bodie will have on his daughter.
In the end, no one knows what the next day will bring.
As
a collection of dialogues that paint believable portraits of the
various characters, Radiance is well done, but the plot is left
unresolved and ambiguous, pretty much like life. It is
said you are only as happy as your unhappiest child so it’s
probably safe to say Mark and Audrey Perdue have the usual emotional
roller coaster to look forward to. Readers who have already parented
teenagers are the most likely to enjoy this book.
Click Here To Purchase Radiance: A Novel