“She was the most alive person he’d ever met.”
“Her mouth was blotted red, as if she’d painted her lips, regretted her sin, and rubbed her shame on the back of her hand.”
“Grace Macaulay – in whose veins ran Essex rivers and Bible ink…”
“For God’s sake, Thomas Hart, for God’s sake: isn’t it all a question of orbits? Things go, things come. Something’s bound to happen soon.”
“though your sins be scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”
I’m not going to lie; I thought Sarah Perry’s Enlightenment (Mariner Books 2024) was going to be my Booker dud. I struggled to get into this novel – reading and rereading the first 15 pages and avoiding reading all together. Then something clicked, and it ended up being one of my favorites from the longlist. The writing gets in its own way sometimes as it attempts a Victorian feel. Sometimes it hits the mark and flows beautifully and antiquated and gorgeous. Sometimes it doesn’t, and it muddies things and appears to try too hard. But by the last page, I was invested. They wanted heart? This novel has it in spades, you might just need a telescope to see it.
The novel starts in 1997 with Thomas Hart writing his column about Hale-Bopp, a comet, and receiving a letter from James Bower about the Lowlands ghost and how he may have found her. It’s also when Nathan breaks the window of Bethesda and the glass cuts 17-year-old Grace’s neck. Those two moments are the start of everything that will define Thomas and Grace for the next twenty years.
Thomas is an author and scholar who grew up in Bethesda, a small Baptist church that clings to the past. Women cover their heads. No jeans. No current music, tv, movies, etc. The church and the community are very much a part of him even though he has had a crisis of faith. Thomas is gay, and he lives two lives. One in London where he loves men, and one in Aldleigh where he attends Bethesda on Sundays. Grace is the reason he still attends church. When he was about to turn his back on the church forever, her father brought baby Grace to the service. Her mother had died during childbirth and her father was bewildered. Thomas decided to stay with one foot in Bethesda to ensure that Grace had some taste of the outside as she grew up.
Thomas, alongside James Bower, begins to chase Maria Vaduva, the Romanian woman they believe to be the Lowlands ghost. Through her uncovered diaries and writings, they reveal more of this phenomenal astronomer who was heartbroken with an unrequited love. As Thomas chases Maria, his love story with James mirrors her’s, as does Grace and Nathan’s. And when all seems lost and her writings and home destroyed, Maria always finds a way to come back, and it is Maria who will reunite Thomas and Grace after they horrifically hurt each other.
There is so much in this novel that begs a second read. One of the things that stood out to me is the repeated use of “red” and “scarlet,” the stain of sin, in particular with Dimi and Nathan.
It’s a novel of faith and stargazing, of finding ones way, of things in orbit that will always come back like a comet or a love or a memory or a ghost.
Read this book.
Booker Count: 12 of 13
A Girl Named Tommi 