A Season of Light
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Behold the Dreamers, comes a compelling novel—applauded by the New York Times Book Review as "luminous. . . Iromuanya is a spectacular storyteller"—about a tightly bound Nigerian family living in Florida and the wounds that get passed down from generation to generation, from the author of the acclaimed Mr. and Mrs. Doctor.
When 276 schoolgirls are abducted from their school in Nigeria, Fidelis Ewerike, a Florida-based barrister, poet, and former POW of the Nigerian Civil War, begins to go mad, consumed by memories of his younger sister Ugochi, who went missing during that conflict. Consumed by survivor’s guilt and fearful that the same fate awaits Amara, his sixteen-year-old daughter who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ugochi, Fidelis locks her in her bedroom, offering no words of explanation, only lovingly—if poorly—made meals and sweets.
Amid that singular action, the Ewerike family spirals into chaos: After unsuccessful attempts to free her daughter from her room, his wife Adaobi seeks the counsel of a preacher, praying for spiritual liberation from the curse she is certain has plagued her family since leaving Nigeria. Fourteen-year-old Chuk, beset by his own war with the neighborhood boys, receives a painful education on force, masculinity, and his tenuous position within his family. And rebellious, resentful Amara is hungry for her life to be hers, so the moment she is able to escape her imprisonment, she falls in love—not with the Aba-born engineer-in-training her mother envisages, but with Maksym Kostyk, the son of the town drunk. Before long, the two have concocted a plan to run away from the trappings of their familial traumas.
Perfect for readers of Sing, Unburied, Sing, Julie Iromuanya's A Season of Light is an all-consuming masterpiece.To peer into the window of the Ewerike family’s lives is a gift.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Iromuanya (Mr. and Mrs. Doctor) gracefully explores intergenerational trauma in this intriguing tale of two immigrant families in Econlockhatchee, Fla. When Boko Haram kidnaps 276 schoolgirls in 2014 Nigeria, the news triggers Fidelis Ewerike's memories of his younger sister's abduction during the Biafran War, which he fought in as a child soldier. Fearing that his American-born daughter, Amara, 16, is at risk, he locks her in her room for weeks. Fidelis's wife is powerless against her husband's overprotectiveness, while their 14-year-old son, Chuk, assumes his sister is being punished. Their family becomes entangled with their neighbors the Kostyks after Mr. Kostyks, a Ukrainian dealing with his own PTSD from combat duty in the U.S.S.R., narrowly avoids striking Fidelis while driving drunk. His son, Maksym, teaches Chuk how to defend himself against bullies, and after Amara sneaks out of the house, she meets Maksym and falls in love with him. Though the families' backgrounds in Nigeria and the Soviet Union are underdeveloped, Iromuanya succeeds at capturing the characters' resilience, and their eventual growth feels earned. It's a beautiful tale of new beginnings.
