Lighthouse Island (Large Print)

(Paperback)

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Description

The bestselling author of the highly praised novels The Color of Lightning, Stormy Weather, and Enemy Women pushes into new territory with this captivating and atmopsheric story set in the far futurea literary dystopian tale resonant with love and hope

In the coming centuries the world's population has exploded and covered the earth with cities, animals are nearly all gone and drought has taken over so that cloudy water is issued by the quart. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years. On this urban planet the only relief from overcrowding and the harsh rule of the big Agencies is the television in every living space, with its dreams of vanished waterfalls and the promise of virtual vacations in green spaces, won by the lucky few.

It is an unwelcoming world for an orphan like Nadia Stepan. Abandoned by her parents on a crowded street when she was four, the little girl is shuttled from orphanage to orphanage, foster-family to foster-family. Nadia grows up dreaming of the vacation spot called Lighthouse Island, in a place called the Pacific Northwest. She becomes obsessed with it and is determined to somehow find her way there. In the meantime this bright and witty orphan falls into the refuge of old and neglected books; the lost world of the imagination. And beyond the confusion and overcrowding and the relentless television noise, comes a radio voice from an abandoned satellite that patiently reads, over and over, the great classical books of the worldBig Radio, a voice in the night that lifts Nadia out of the dull and perpetual Present.

An opportunity for escape appears and Nadia takes it, abandoning everything to strike out for Lighthouse Island in a dangerous and sometimes comic adventure. She meets every contingency with bottomless inventiveness meets the man who changes the course of her life:James Orotov, mapmaker and demolition expert. Together they evade arrest and head north toward a place of wild beauty that lies beyond the megapolisLighthouse Island and its all-seeing eye.

Reviews

"Jiles's prose is a striking match for the barren landscape of this moody adventure tale." -- Publishers Weekly on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND

"A remarkably engaging story. . . . Jiles's description is memorable and evocative." -- Denver Post on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING

"[A] meticulously researched and beautifully crafted story . . . this is glorious work." -- Washington Post on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING

"A gripping, deeply relevant book." -- New York Times Book Review on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING

"A rousing, character-driven tale." -- Kirkus Reviews on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING

"Jiles' spare and melancholy prose is the perfect language for this tale in which survival necessitates brutality." -- Seattle Times on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING

"Lighthouse Island is a beacon of hope for Nadia, the clever, resourceful young heroine of Paulette Jiles' spellbinding new novel. . . . Jiles' writing is crisp and vivid as always, and although her setting is vastly different, her themes--independence, individuality, love of the land--remain intact." -- San Antonio Express-News on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND

"Nadia's wandering journey maintains that hopeful anticipation of deep sleep. . . Jiles (Color of Lightening; Stormy Weather) has created a fascinating dystopic vision of a future world." -- Library Journal on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND

"The dystopian novel is beautifully written, and Jiles' scenes of [protagonist] Nadia navigating the crumbling cityscape and her surreal interactions with the many desperate characters are vivid, shocking and often darkly funny." -- Columbus Dispatch on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND

"[I]nventive futurism and rollicking wit." -- New York Times Book Review on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND

Author Bio

Paulette Jiles is a novelist, poet, and memoirist. She is the author of Cousins, a memoir, and the novels Enemy Women, Stormy Weather, The Color of Lightning, Lighthouse Island, and News of the World, which was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award. She lives on a ranch near San Antonio, Texas.