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Summary
Summary
From Garth Stein, author of the beloved bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain --now a major motion picture
The New York Times bestselling "witty, atmospheric" ( People ) story of a once powerful American family, and the price that must be paid by the heirs as they struggle for redemption: "A captivating page-turner" ( Star Tribune , Minneapolis).
Twenty-three years after the fateful summer of 1990, Trevor Riddell recalls the events surrounding his fourteenth birthday, when he gets his first glimpse of the infamous Riddell House. Built from the spoils of a massive timber fortune, the legendary family mansion is constructed of giant whole trees and is set on a huge estate overlooking Seattle's Puget Sound. Trevor's bankrupt parents have separated, and his father, Jones Riddell, has brought Trevor to Riddell House with a goal: to join forces with Aunt Serena, dispatch the ailing and elderly Grandpa Samuel to a nursing home, sell off the house and property for development, and divide up the profits.
But as young Trevor explores the house's hidden stairways and forgotten rooms, he discovers secrets that convince him that the family plan may be at odds with the land's true destiny. Only Trevor's willingness to face the dark past of his forefathers will reveal the key to his family's future.
Spellbinding and atmospheric, A Sudden Light is rich with vivid characters, poetic scenes of natural beauty, and powerful moments of spiritual transcendence. "Garth Stein is resourceful, cleverly piecing together the family history with dreams, overheard conversations, and reminiscences...a tale well told," ( The Seattle Times )--a triumphant work of a master storyteller at the height of his power.
Author Notes
Garth Stein is the author of Raven Stole the Moon, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets, The Art of Racing in the Rain and A Sudden Light. The Art of Racing in the Rain has sold more than 4 million copies in 35 languages, and spent more than three years on the New York Times bestseller list. It has inspired a Young Reader edition as well as a children's picture book adaptation (2014) and is currently in development with Universal Studios for a major motion picture. A sudden light made the New York Times bestseller list in 2014.
Before turning to writing full-time, Garth was a documentary filmmaker, directing, editing, and/or producing several award-winning films, including The Lunch Date, winner of the Academy award for live action short in 1990, and The Last Party, starring Robert Downey, Jr.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* There's more than one way to be haunted. In Stein's first novel since his popular The Art of Racing in the Rain (2008), a 14-year-old named Trevor uncovers the dark mysteries surrounding the mansion built by his great-great-grandfather, a timber baron in the Pacific Northwest. While Trevor's father is ostensibly there to sell the property and position himself to save his faltering marriage, Trevor begins to suspect there's a soul at the mansion determined to see it returned to nature. Stuck in the house with his demented grandfather and flirtatious aunt, the perceptive teenager learns about his family's legacy, his forebears' avarice causing damage as it echoes down the generations. A sense of intrigue pervades Trevor's quest to discover more about the house and its history, and Stein succeeds in capturing both heavy and heady emotions. The sentiments resonate so well that readers will likely overlook the somewhat jarring journal entries written like book chapters, complete with dialogue. Although the estate comes with all the requisite creaks, hidden doors, and tumbledown grandeur of a standard haunted house, there's much more to this story than the average spooky tale. With a sincere narrator, dizzying flights of prose, and tightly bound relationships, the supernatural is almost beside the point. Less spine-tingling than heart-wrenching, A Sudden Light is haunting in all the right ways.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2014 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Trevor Riddell, now an adult, remembers his experiences and discoveries from the summer when he was 14, which he spent at his family's home near Seattle. Trevor's parents are newly separated, and his father takes him to visit his dysfunctional relatives-mysterious Aunt Serena and a senile grandfather-where things aren't as they may seem. The enormous house is rife with secret stairways, ghosts, hidden rooms, and long-lost diaries. Stein's dark descriptions of the house, the Pacific Northwest, and the characters are superb, although the story can be slow-moving at times. Seth Numrich provides an engaging and believable narration. VERDICT Of interest to fans of Stein (Racing in the Rain) and contemporary ghost stories. ["While this purported ghost tale starts strong, an earnest environmental message and other philosophizing bogs it down in a silly, overly dramatic plot," read the review of the S. & S. hc, LJ 9/15/14.]-Denise Garofalo, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
A Sudden Light THE CURSE Growing up in rural Connecticut, I had been told the name Riddell meant something to people in the Northwest. My paternal great-great-grandfather was someone of significance, my mother explained to me. Elijah Riddell had accumulated a tremendous fortune in the timber industry, a fortune that was later lost by those who succeeded him. My forefathers had literally changed the face of America--with axes and two-man saws and diesel donkeys to buck the fallen, with mills to pulp the corpses and scatter the ashes, they carved out a place in history for us all. And that place, I was told, was cursed. My mother, who was born of English peasant stock on the peninsula of Cornwall, made something of herself by following her passion for the written word, eventually writing the dissertation that would earn her a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University and becoming the first in her family to receive an advanced degree. Though she never did anything of note with her brilliance, she did carry it around with her like a seed bag, sprinkling handfuls of it on what she deemed fertile soil. She spent much time quoting literature to me when I was young, thus sparking my own avid reading habits. So the theme of the Ancient Mariner and his story, as told by the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge--and how the Mariner's story was emblematic of my family's history--was something I had heard often before my fourteenth birthday. The curse. When one destroys something of beauty and nature--as did the Mariner, who shot the kindly albatross that led his ship out of the perilous Antarctic seas--one will be punished. Cursed. My mother told me this; my father nodded when she did. Punishment will rain down upon the offender and the family of the offender, I was told, until the debt is settled. The debt owed by my family has been paid, and then some. My mother believes our family's story was settled with that debt--she has always maintained an unyielding faith in the cathartic power of denouement--which is why she has chosen to go for a walk this morning, rather than stay with us to hear me tell our story again. But I disagree with my mother: there is no tidy end to any story, as much as we might hope. Stories continue in all directions to include even the retelling of the stories themselves, as legend is informed by interpretation, and interpretation is informed by time. And so I tell my story to you, as the Mariner told his: he, standing outside the wedding party, snatching at a passing wrist, paralyzing his victim with his gaze; I, standing with my family at the edge of this immortal forest. I tell this story because telling this story is what I must do. Twenty-some years ago, before technology changed the world and terrorism struck fear into the hearts of all citizens. Before boys in trench coats stalked and murdered classrooms full of innocent children in schools across this fair land. Before the oceans were thick with oil slicks and the government ceased to govern and Bill Gates set out to love the world to death and hurricanes became powerful enough to stagger entire cities and toxic children were drugged into oblivion to drive up the profits of Big Pharma, and genetically modified foodstuffs were forced upon us without us knowing we needed to care. Before smoking marijuana at gay marriages became passé--before gay people became, eh, just like anyone else, and weed became, eh, just another source of tax revenue. This was even before another famous Bill, the one surnamed Clinton, became famous for his choice of cigars. It seems like ages ago, looking back on it. No smartphones. No On Demand. Nary an iPad in sight. So long ago. Yes. This story begins in 1990. On a hot July day in Seattle, a sickly pea green rental car drives from Sea-Tac airport northward on Interstate 5, through the sprawl of neighborhoods hidden by hills, tucked away behind bridges and bodies of water. Its passengers, a father and a son, don't speak to each other. The boy is nearly fourteen, and he is unhappy. Unhappy with being displaced from his childhood home and forced on an unwanted road trip. Unhappy with his mother for not being with him. Unhappy with his father for simply being. So he doesn't speak; he concentrates on Pink Floyd's The Wall, which he listens to intently through the headphones of his Walkman. His father looks over at him frequently, nervously. He seems to crave the boy's approval, which the boy will not give. As they approach the city from the south, the boy glances up and notices the Space Needle, that ubiquitous and baffling Seattle icon. He winces at the irrelevance of the monument--who on earth would build such a thing, and what kind of citizenry would keep it?--and lowers his eyes again to his shoes, which are far more interesting to him. He doesn't notice as they drive through the city, but drive through the city they do. They emerge on a high bridge. "Don't you want to see this?" the father says, finally, desperately, tapping the boy's shoulder and indicating the glory of Seattle all around them. The boy lifts his eyes and looks around. Bridges, lakes, bland buildings, radio towers, floatplanes, mountains, trees. He's seen it. "No," he says and returns his focus to his music. The voices chant at him: Tear down the wall. Tear down the wall. And so my story for you begins. Excerpted from A Sudden Light by Garth Stein All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
