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'The Blind Light reads like a British Don DeLillo, telling the social history of Britain through two generations of a family.' Alex Preston, Observer
In the late 1950s, during his National Service, Drummond meets the two people who will change his life: Carter, a rich, educated young man sent down from Oxford; and Gwen, a barmaid with whom he feels an instant connection. His feelings for both will be tested at a military base known as Doom Town – a training ground where servicemen prepare for the aftermath of an Atomic Strike. It is an experience that will colour the rest of his – and his family's – life.
Told from the perspectives of Drum and Gwen, and later their children Nathan and Anneka, The Blind Light moves from the Fifties through to present day, taking in the global and local events that will shape and define them all. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the War on Terror, from the Dagenham strikes to Foot and Mouth, from Skiffle to Rave, we see a family come together, driven apart, fracture and reform – as the pressure of the past is brought, sometimes violently, to bear on the present.
The Blind Light is a powerful, ambitious, big yet intimate story of our national past and a brilliant evocation of a family and a country. It will remind you how complicated human history is – and how hard it is to do the right thing for the right reasons. Stuart Evers' debut, Ten Stories About Smoking, won the London Book Award in 2011; his highly acclaimed novel, If This is Home, followed in 2012 and his collection Your Father Sends His Love, was shortlisted for the 2016 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. In 2017, Evers won the Eccles British Library Writer's Award – one of Europe's richest prizes for a work in progress. His work has appeared in three editions of the Best British Short Stories, as well as Granta, the White Review, Prospect and on Radio 4. Originally from the North West, he lives in London. Sweeping from the 1950s to now, this deeply moving novel tells the interconnected story of two very different families, during a time of momentous change in twentieth-century Britain.
In the late 1950s, during his National Service, Drummond meets the two people who will change his life: Carter, a rich, educated young man sent down from Oxford; and Gwen, a barmaid with whom he feels an instant connection. His feelings for both will be tested at a military base known as Doom Town – a training ground where servicemen prepare for the aftermath of an Atomic Strike. It is an experience that will colour the rest of his – and his family's – life.
Told from the perspectives of Drum and Gwen, and later their children Nathan and Anneka, The Blind Light moves from the Fifties through to present day, taking in the global and local events that will shape and define them all. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the War on Terror, from the Dagenham strikes to Foot and Mouth, from Skiffle to Rave, we see a family come together, driven apart, fracture and reform – as the pressure of the past is brought, sometimes violently, to bear on the present.
The Blind Light is a powerful, ambitious, big yet intimate story of our national past and a brilliant evocation of a family and a country. It will remind you how complicated human history is – and how hard it is to do the right thing for the right reasons. Stuart Evers' debut, Ten Stories About Smoking, won the London Book Award in 2011; his highly acclaimed novel, If This is Home, followed in 2012 and his collection Your Father Sends His Love, was shortlisted for the 2016 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. In 2017, Evers won the Eccles British Library Writer's Award – one of Europe's richest prizes for a work in progress. His work has appeared in three editions of the Best British Short Stories, as well as Granta, the White Review, Prospect and on Radio 4. Originally from the North West, he lives in London. Sweeping from the 1950s to now, this deeply moving novel tells the interconnected story of two very different families, during a time of momentous change in twentieth-century Britain.