The Light Room
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Kate Zambreno has invented a new form. It is a kind of absolute present, real life captured in closeup.“ —Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
From “one of our most formally ambitious writers” (Esquire), a moving account of caretaking in a time of uncertainty and loss
In The Light Room, Zambreno offers her most profound and affecting work yet: a candid chronicle of life as a mother of two young daughters in a moment of profound uncertainty about public health, climate change, and the future we can expect for our children. Moving through the seasons, returning often to parks and green spaces, Zambreno captures the isolation and exhaustion of being home with a baby and a small child, but also small and transcendent moments of beauty and joy. Inspired by writers and artists ranging from Natalia Ginzburg to Joseph Cornell, Yūko Tsushima to Bernadette Mayer, Etel Adnan to David Wojnarowicz, The Light Room represents an impassioned appreciation of community and the commons, and an ecstatic engagement with the living world.
How will our memories, and our children’s, be affected by this time of profound disconnection? What does it mean to bring new life, and new work, into this moment of precarity and crisis? In The Light Room, Kate Zambreno offers a vision of how to live in ways that move away from disenchantment, and toward light and possibility.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this poignant memoir, novelist and critic Zambreno (How to Write as If Already Dead) reflects on caring for her two young children during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Organizing her narrative seasonally, Zambreno considers the trials and triumphs of raising a family amid that cultural tumult while staving off fears of additional crises, including ecological collapse. Her meditations traverse such topics as the demands of teaching at home, concern for her daughters' development, and her delight in sharing time with them outdoors. Throughout, Zambreno turns to influences including writer Natalia Ginzburg and visual artist Joseph Cornell for guidance and inspiration, pulling ideas for crafts and inspirations for journaling from their work. Though Zambreno's repeated complaints about nursing, sleep deprivation, and a problematic radiator may prove tedious even to empathetic readers, her frustration is relatable: "Sometimes mommies have tantrums, too," she admits. Her mastery of imagery—particularly as it pertains to light and nature—provides welcome moments of transcendence: "Sometimes the sky had clouds like putty, other times it was unimaginably clear, tinted blue, with an almost overbearing noon sun." It adds up to an arresting snapshot of caregiving in a time of uncertainty.
