Released: 4th March 2021
Genre: Drama, Supernatural, Romance, Mystery
Number of Pages: 355
Relatively new to the literary scene, Emma Stonex has drawn plenty of inspiration from personal travels. Her passion for seaside settlements and lighthouse keeping laid the groundwork for The Lamplighters, a debut novel which serves up a hybrid of genres.
In 1972, three keepers named Arthur, Bill and Vince vanish from the Maiden lighthouse under strange circumstances. Their three widows, Helen, Jenny and Michelle, were split apart by the incident and have remained distant for twenty years. A writer, Dan Sharp, comes to Cornwall to write a book about the incident, offering a chance for the women to reconcile. As the truth slowly comes to light, the interactions between the characters unfold over twenty years. We swap between the coastal community and the three men at the lighthouse with each being distinctive in language and overall presentation. The men are laidback and uninhibited while the women are deeply reflective and introverted; both sides succeed at complementing each other despite the more plodding pace.
The Lamplighters is heavily focused on its characters, often labelling chapters from a defined perspective. On an internal level, we gradually learn about the two trios, the tensions that drove them apart and their own unique characteristics. Through it all, Dan Sharp is kept to the background as the book maintains the focus on the lighthouse keepers and their wives. This is definitely the best move as any external characters would have taken away from the central emotions on display. Vince is a former criminal who wanted to escape his troubled past at the lighthouse, Bill has a difficult secret back at shore and Arthur is wracked with guilt over a tragic death years earlier. The dramatic heft is well done, though towards the end of the book, the more mystical reasons behind the vanishing keepers does distract from the individual stories. Rather than being built up over the course of the novel, it enters the page in the last set of chapters.
Recommended?
MAYBE: The Lamplighters blends several genres together; drama, mystery, romance and a hint of the supernatural. The blend will appeal to some readers more than others. As the surreal elements creep in towards the end, I felt they took away from the mystery of the lighthouse disappearances, but they don’t diminish the book’s poignant side. It remains a well written novel with a strong grounding in family and community connections.
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