The Illuminations

The Illuminations, the fifth novel from Andrew O'Hagan, a writer "of astonishingly assured gifts" ( The New York Times Book Review ), is a work of deeply charged beauty and one that demonstrates, with poignancy and power, that no matter how we look at it, there is no such thing as an ordinary life.How much do we keep from the people we love? Why is the truth so often buried in secrets? Can we learn from the past or must we forget it? Anne Quirk’s life is built on stories - the lies she was told by the man she loved and the fictions she told herself to survive. In her youth, she was an artistic pioneer, a creator of ground-breaking documentary photographs. Her beloved grandson Luke, a British army captain, has inherited her habit of transforming reality. He and Anne set out to confront a mystery from her past among the Blackpool Illuminations - the dazzling lights that brighten the seaside town as the season turns to winter."The Scottish author’s fifth novel is a lean yet rich family story built of small and crucial moments in memories and reality across three generations... The story is ripe for sentimentality, but there’s a journalistic cast to the spare prose and tight dialogue that helps O’Hagan almost always avoid it. It's remarkable how much human territory O’Hagan explores and illuminates with a restrained style that also helps drive the novel along at a good clip." - Kirkus ReviewsAndrew O'Hagan is the author of the novels Our Fathers, Personality, and Be Near Me, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and The Guardian (UK). He was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists in 2003 and has won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. An arresting story of myth and memory from an acclaimed British novelist... Anne Quirks life is built on storiesboth the lies she was told by the man she loved and the fictions she told herself to survive. Nobody remembers Anne now, but this elderly woman was an artistic pioneer in her youth, a creator of groundbreaking documentary photographs. Her beloved grandson Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers in the British army, has inherited her habit of transforming reality. When Lukes mission in Afghanistan goes horribly wrong, his vision of life is distorted and he is forced to see the world anew. Once Luke returns to Scotland, the secrets and lies that have shaped generations of his family begin to emerge as he and Anne set out to confront a mystery from her past among the Blackpool Illuminationsthe dazzling artificial lights that brighten the seaside resort town as the season turns to winter. The Illuminations, the fifth novel from Andrew OHagan, a novelist of astonishingly assured gifts ( The New York Times Book Review ), is a beautiful, deeply charged story that reveals that no matter how we look at it, there is no such thing as an ordinary life. ** From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Mayflies and Caledonian Road •• Order Andrew O'Hagan's new novel Caledonian Road now •• How much do we keep from the people we love? Why is the truth so often buried in secrets? Can we learn from the past or must we forget it? Standing one evening at the window of her house by the sea, Anne Quirk sees a rabbit disappearing in the snow. Nobody remembers her now, but this elderly woman was in her youth a pioneer of British documentary photography. Her beloved grandson, Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers, is on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, part of a convoy taking equipment to the electricity plant at Kajaki. Only when Luke returns home to Scotland does Anne's secret story begin to emerge, along with his, and they set out for an old guest house in Blackpool where she once kept a room. A British army captain whose artistic pioneer grandmother lived an illusory life to cope with hardships begins transforming his own sense of reality in the aftermath of a mission gone wrong before confronting a mystery from his family's past