Lighthousekeeping tells the tale of Silver ("My mother called me Silver. I was born part precious metal, part pirate."), an orphaned girl who is taken in by blind Mr. Pew, the mysterious and miraculously old keeper of a lighthouse on the Scottish coast. Pew tells Silver stories of Babel Dark, a nineteenth-century clergyman. Dark lived two lives: a public one mired in darkness and deceit and a private one bathed in the light of passionate love. For Silver, Dark's life becomes a map through her own darkness, into her own story, and, finally, into love.
One of the most original and extraordinary writers of her generation, Jeanette Winterson has created a modern fable about the transformative power of storytelling.
Industry Reviews
PRAISE FOR LIGHTHOUSEKEEPING
"Hypnotic . . . Atmospheric and elusive, Winterson's high-modernist excursion is an inspired meditation on myth and language."
-THE NEW YORKER "A luminous retelling of the Tristan-Isolde legend and an account of the grown-up Silver's pursuit of love . . . Winterson weaves a beautiful and coherent tapestry . . . She achieves a quality that justly can be called visionary."-LOS ANGELES TIMES PRAISE FOR LIGHTHOUSEKEEPING
"Hypnotic . . . Atmospheric and elusive, Winterson's high-modernist excursion is an inspired meditation on myth and language."
-THE NEW YORKER
"A luminous retelling of the Tristan-Isolde legend and an account of the grown-up Silver's pursuit of love . . . Winterson weaves a beautiful and coherent tapestry . . . She achieves a quality that justly can be called visionary."-LOS ANGELES TIMES "For all the talk of love, it often seems that what Winterson is really talking about is desire -- the longing, the pursuit, the potent combination of erotic encounter and absence, all of which she is very good at evoking. . . . There's an appealing, flirty energy to Winterson's narrative voice, which gives her novels a great deal of momentum. . . . The sheer pleasure that she takes in telling stories is infectious."
--"The Globe and Mail
"Merely reading Jeanette Winterson is a mistake. You need to ingest her rhythms and metaphors until the book breathes inside your consciousness. . . . Lighthousekeeping. . . is a magical tale. . . . a fast and engrossing tale of love and betrayal."
--"Elle (Canada)
"Lighthousekeeping is a sheer delight. . . . It is aimed squarely at the heart, not the head. . . . The success of Lighthousekeeping..".lies in its complete disregard for fact in favour of fantasy, and in the seductive richness of its language. . . . Humour and inventiveness are plentiful throughout the book. . . . With Lighthousekeeping," Winterson has produced a novel so abundantly warmhearted that it would seem simply churlish to dislike it."
--"The Scotsman
"Winterson has reverted to the accessible narrative of works such as The Passion. Lighthousekeeping is all the better for it."
--"Financial Times (UK)
"The power of Lighthousekeeping is in its stylistic dynamic between holding itself together with the pared-down precision of its language, each word smoothed into a finely polished pebble, and spilling out in the consciousnesses, narratives and disparate times that bleed seamlessly into each other."
--"The Observer (UK)
Praise for JeanetteWinterson:
"There is always a visionary moment in a Jeanette Winterson novel when someone sets sail and a new world is invoked in tones suffused with ecstasy. . . . She takes us on mythic journeys to shifting cities of the interior."
--"The Times Literary Supplement
"She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides."
--Muriel Spark
"She is able to walk the tightrope of suspense, making the reader crave the next meticulously sensual detail."
--"Edmonton Journal
"Winterson expresses the range of the human soul."
--"The Vancouver Sun "From the Hardcover edition.
