Title: Radiance: A Novel
Author: Louis B. Jones
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Source: Julia Drake PR
From the book jacket:
Mark Perdue has so many problems that when he starts feeling chest pains on the tarmac at LAX, it dawns on him that a heart attack might be an efficient way out. Once an eminent physicist, he hasn’t published or had a new idea in a decade. The younger professors at UC Berkeley pity him, and he’s taken to using the back staircases to avoid their looks, which all seem to be labeling him dead weight. At home, his wife has been inconsolable since the recent late-term abortion of their afflicted fetus. And he can’t deny it any longer—he is decidedly losing his mental faculties to chronic Lyme disease.
Now Mark is visiting Los Angeles with his ambitious daughter, Carlotta, so she can attend a “Celebrity Fantasy Vacation,†in which she is promised three days and two nights of the rock star lifestyle (musical talent not required, promises the brochure). On stage, Carlotta sings her way to a new self-confidence, giving Mark a glimmer of joy in her sense of victory. But then she disappears with her newly acquired paraplegic boyfriend to take an excursion to the Hollywood sign and gets them all arrested, Mark included. Mark now faces a night in jail—and maybe a hint of what he really needs to be happy.
People use a variety of ways to identify themselves. Their profession, their friends and the amount in their bank account are but a few. Mark Perdue defined himself for a long time as a brilliant physicist as did others around him. His colleagues no longer find him interesting and his memory is fading under the effects of Lyme Disease. He was looking forward to being a new father again. The weekend in Hollywood with Carlotta is his time away to process his life and spend time with Carlotta before she becomes independent and leaves home for good.
I think anyone who is married or has looked at the state of their life can empathize with Mark’s state of mind. Much of the novel is an interior dialogue commenting on the weekend’s events. Jones hits on some universal truths.
Radiance: A Novel is well written but isn’t for the person who wants lots of locations or action in their stories.