A Pure Clear Light, by Madeleine St John

My third Madeleine St John novel, and I’ve not been disappointed yet.

Like St John’s other novel that is set in contemporary England, The Essence of the Thing, this novel delicately dissects the relationships of a group of family and friends. St John deftly handles the complex and irrational actions and behaviours of her characters, offering no solutions or neat moral conclusions. Instead she shows life’s limitations, and how our wildly fanciful hopes and dreams are embarrassingly reduced to ashes.

How I wish Woody Allen would give up writing his own scripts and make a film adaptation of this very true novel.