Title: Soon the Light Will Be Perfect by Dave Patterson
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Genre: Contemporary, Fiction
Length: 256 pages
Book Rating: B
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
Two brothers brave a whirlwind summer in this taut and luminous coming-of-age novel
A twelve-year-old boy lives with his family in a small, poverty-stricken town in Vermont. His father works at a manufacturing plant, his mother is a homemaker, and his fifteen-year-old brother is about to enter high school. His family has gained enough financial stability to move out of the nearby trailer park, and as conflict rages abroad, his father’s job at a weapons manufacturing plant appears safe. But then his mother is diagnosed with cancer, and everything changes.
As the family clings to the traditions of their hard-line Catholicism, he meets Taylor, a perceptive, beguiling girl from the trailer park, a girl who has been forced to grow up too fast. Taylor represents everything his life isn’t, and their fledgling connection develops as his mother’s health deteriorates.
Set over the course of one propulsive summer, Soon the Light Will Be Perfect chronicles the journey of two brothers on the cusp of adulthood, a town battered by poverty and a family at a breaking point. In spare, fiercely honest prose, Dave Patterson captures what it feels like to be gloriously, violently alive at a moment of political, social and familial instability.
Review:
Soon the Light Will Be Perfect by Dave Patterson is a poignant coming of age novel set in rural Vermont in the late 1980s.
The twelve year old narrator, his fifteen year old brother and his parents have achieved enough financial security to move out of a trailer park and into a house. His father escaped a round of layoffs at a plant that manufactures weapons. His mom does not work outside the home but she is involved with local charities. His family is staunchly Catholic and they are very involved with their local parish. However, when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, he and his brother are left to care for themselves as she undergoes debilitating chemotherapy. During the course of her treatment, America enters the Gulf War but his father is worried when a situation at work jeopardizes his job.
As our narrator tries to make sense of his life, a growing divide between him and his brother leaves him to fend for himself. Entering into puberty, he is confused and conflicted about his sudden awareness of girls. He is briefly befriended by Taylor, a teenage girl who lives with her mom and a constant parade of boyfriends. With the family’s strict religious background, the twelve year old does not understand why his prayers for his mother and their family are going unanswered.
Despite the somewhat bleak storyline, Soon the Light Will Be Perfect is a compelling novel about a family in crisis. This realistic depiction of the narrator’s struggles with puberty, faith, his mother’s illness, and economic uncertainly is heartbreaking. The novel has slightly ominous overtones due to the uncertainty of the mom’s health, the dad’s precarious job situation and the boys rebellious behavior. This engaging story concludes on a bit of a positive note that will leave readers hoping the family’s troubles are behind them. I truly enjoyed and highly recommend this excellent debut by Dave Patterson.
