Light on a Part of the Field

In his evocative debut novel, Light on
a Part of the Field, Kevin Holowack introduces us to a family grappling
with artistic ambition, mental illness, and rifts that may not be possible to
mend. Set in BC and Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s, this is a novel of finely
observed vignettes offering a refracted look at art and family in the modern
West.

A young artist, Ruth, and her obsessive husband, an
aspiring poet, are struck by lightning, an experience that throws their lives
into a universe of intense beauty and angst. Years later, Ruth lives on a farm
her husband bought before his mysterious disappearance, and she creates idyllic
but naïve paintings to cope with her confusion and loss. Then, without warning,
her eldest daughter Gayle is love-struck by a travelling stranger and runs off
to Edmonton where she too must contend with poverty, sickness, and her father’s
upsetting legacy. Meanwhile, farm-bound Ruth becomes more frantic in her work
and begins longing for human contact as her house and animals disintegrate
around her.


As Gayle and Ruth seek new ways of connecting in
order to remedy their unsettling family legacy, they begin a complicated
process of renewal and must decide whether they can reconcile despite all the
pain they have caused one another.