Illumination Night

Beginning on the night of the Grand Illumination, a festival of lanterns held each summer on Martha’s Vineyard, this novel is a modern chronicle of a marriage and a bittersweet exploration of an extraordinary passion. Illumination Night follows the lives of a young blond giant who is as beautiful as he is frightening; an old woman at the end of her life whose last mission is to save her granddaughter’s soul; a family torn apart by a wife’s fears and a husband’s unrealized desires—and the high school girl who comes to Martha’s Vineyard against her will, who steals husbands and cars, and who will bring everyone together in a web of yearning, sin, and ultimate redemption. Both riveting and reflective, this is a story of “parenthood and friendship, self-protection and generosity, dream and disillusionment” (Newsday) that brings to light the talent that has made Alice Hoffman an acclaimed bestselling author.

Elizabeth is an elderly widow suffering from spells of fantasy and failing sight. Andre and Vonny are a young couple trying to make ends meet. Jody is a teenage runaway. On the island of Chilmark near Martha's Vineyard, they all come together. "Haunting, fable-like."--Cosmopolitan.

With her signature "vivid, convincing characters [and] uncommon insight," (People) Alice Hoffman in Illumination Night follows the lives of an old woman whose last mission is to save her granddaughter's soul; a family torn apart by a wife's fears and a husband's desires-and a high school girl who comes to Martha's Vineyard against her will, and who will bring everyone together in a web of yearning, sin, and ultimate redemption.

"[A] bright constellation of characters...draws the reader into the dusky, dreamy world of Alice Hoffman." (St. Petersburg Times)

"Alice Hoffman hits bull's eyes on the incomprehensions between the young and the old, on the magic and pain of ordinary life. She is erotic and romantic...funny...clever and humane." (The Times, London)

"Alice Hoffman takes seemingly ordinary lives and lets us see and feel extraordinary things." (Amy Tan)

"One of the best writers we have today-insightful, funny, intelligent, with a distinctive voice." (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

"A major novelist." (Newsweek)

New York Times - Gwyneth Cravens

Subtle touches here and there make this intelligent novel shine. Ms. Hoffman knows how to tell a story in clear language and how to avoid subordinating the meanderings of temperament to logic or plot.

In a prolific career that began with early writings in the American Review, Alice Hoffman has expanded and developed the idea of family and community -- the forces that bind it together and the forces that drive it apart -- with understated and elegant prose and powerful and complex characters.