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