Southern Light

Southern LightAuthor: J.R. SalamancaTitle: Southern LightPublication: Alfred A. KnopfEdition: FIRST EDITIONDescription: First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good. Dust jacket is very good. Seller ID: 330315Subject: Literature

In the ornate, fine-spun, highly colored prose that also marked his earlier work (Lilith, A Sea Change, Salamanca sets his long novel on a small island in Chesapeake Bay and inhabits it with two principal charactersCarl Ransome, a retired physician, and Sylvia Linthicum, a youngish college teacher on sabbatical leave. Troubled by memories of his late wife, disquieted by meditations on death, Ransome is trying to locate, define, assess the moral meaning of his life. Sylvia is blind, tormented by her loss of sight. Their lives become intricately involved and they establish an intimate though not overtly sexual friendship. Each acts as a sounding-board for the other; he tells of his failures of feeling and she of her love for her brother, of compensatory affairs and her emotional aridity. Slowly, they achieve insight: he sees the truths of his past, and she understands the reason for her sudden blindness, incurred at the very moment of incestuous consummation. The novel is overlong and the prose can be oppressively sumptuous and preening; but the narrative has a seductive appeal.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Salamanca's sprawling novel is the story of two people, outwardly successful but psychologically maimed, who come together on an island off the Maryland coast, establishing a caring relationship that may ultimately save them both. Carl Ransome is a doctor whose personal life is a shambles and whose professional life is marred by betrayal and cowardice. Sylvie, self-indulgent and cynical, has never been able to make a real commitment to anyone. As the novel cuts back and forth from Carl's story to Sylvie's it gathers momentum which brings it to a climactic revelation. Salamanca has imbued the novel with a real sense of placeSolomon's Island in particular is made vibrantly real. Unfortunately, his main characters are periodically overwhelmed by some long, lushly philosophical speeches, but while this distracts it is not a fatal flaw. Beth Ann Mills, New Rochelle P.L, N.Y.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.