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58th out of 100 books
—
41 voters
Ghost Lights (Trilogy #2)
by
Lydia Millet
Hal is a mild-mannered IRS bureaucrat who suspects that his wife is cheating with her younger, more virile coworker. At a drunken dinner party, Hal volunteers to fly to Belize in search of Susan's employer, T.—the protagonist of Lydia Millet's much-lauded novel How the Dead Dream—who has vanished in a tropical jungle, initiating a darkly humorous descent into strange and u...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
October 24th 2011
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published October 17th 2011)
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Ghost Lights is an odd little book. It was recommended by a woman in my writing workshop for its sardonic narrative voice. And that voice is easily the book's biggest strength, the reason I chose four stars instead of the three I am inclined to give it.
The protagonist of the book is Hal, 50 years old and working for the IRS, having something of an everyman life crisis. His 20-something daughter is paralyzed, has a boyfriend he disapproves of, and is working as a sex line operator. He suspects h...more
The protagonist of the book is Hal, 50 years old and working for the IRS, having something of an everyman life crisis. His 20-something daughter is paralyzed, has a boyfriend he disapproves of, and is working as a sex line operator. He suspects h...more
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I really liked this-- again, Millet's odd sentences and crisp details really locate you in a very particular head space. And this one, I think, has a more immediate cliffhanger ending than it's predecessor, _What the Dead Dream_, though like that book, it remains kind of elliptical in terms of what the book is actually about.
I don't totally mean that: I think that the narrator here is going to bleed out and die, and we'll learn this only as an afterthought in the next book. And I do think that t...more
I don't totally mean that: I think that the narrator here is going to bleed out and die, and we'll learn this only as an afterthought in the next book. And I do think that t...more
Lydia Millet knows how to get inside people's heads, but not in that way that makes you think this books is really about her. And how could it be, since it is actually about Hal, a quiet, middle-aged, cuckolded IRS bureaucrat who makes an impulsive decision to head to Belize to find his wife's missing boss? To sum up: the first two books in this trilogy are about men trying to build mini empires out of absurd yet heroic acts. Not because they are weak (they're not, really, just mild-mannered), o...more
In many ways, I guess, Lydia Millet's Ghost Lights is an ideal summer read -- there's enough intrigue, humor, introspection, and competent storytelling to make one reluctant at times to put the novel down. I don't tend to be especially fond of midlife crisis narratives, but at least Millet compensates for some of the genre's cliched trappings on display here with periodic wry moments and insightful observations (for example, when Hal Lindley reflects on the shared solitude of dogs and humans, or...more
This only the second novel from Lydia Millet that I've read (the previous one being How the Dead Dream, the prequel to this one). She is, quite simply, rocketing up my list of all-time favorite authors! Just like How the Dead Dream, I read Ghost Lights in one sitting. I couldn't put it down.
It helps that her writing flows so easily. In fact, it's rather lulling - you tend to forget how powerful her writing is when you're immersed in it, how effortlessly it finds its way into the deep, private, m...more
It helps that her writing flows so easily. In fact, it's rather lulling - you tend to forget how powerful her writing is when you're immersed in it, how effortlessly it finds its way into the deep, private, m...more
What we've got here, as far as I can tell, is a book about a very passive IRS agent, Hal, who finds himself involved in a story bigger than he is. The writing has a distanced quality. I'm not sure how the author intended Hal to be viewed, but I didn't think he had much depth of feeling--a bit of a snoozer--and I certainly couldn't connect to him based on his reactions to things. For example, he finds out his wife is cheating on him, he has sex with a beautiful young woman who's way out of his le...more
I enjoyed the writing style of this book . . . but the philosophizing and stereotyping of the characters was too much for me. The materialistic business owner who disappears in Belize and undergoes a transformation. The paraplegic daughter who has a tattooed biker boyfriend. The wife who has an affair with her much younger co-worker. The IRS agent who steps outside the box, travels to Belize, and searches for the business owner to earn the respect of his estranged wife. The story line could have...more
I wandered into a rare brick and mortar bookstore and casually picked up this book. It was an impulse buy and I thought twice about spending the money on this after I got it home.
This book is absolutely astounding! The story line is creative and the main character is dry minded but seeking and finds himself in a surreal setting musing over the absolutes of life. It was slightly compared to Murakami which is why I bought it in the first place.
The inner dialogue is the best part; funny bits that...more
This book is absolutely astounding! The story line is creative and the main character is dry minded but seeking and finds himself in a surreal setting musing over the absolutes of life. It was slightly compared to Murakami which is why I bought it in the first place.
The inner dialogue is the best part; funny bits that...more
Pleasant but facile. A bland character vacillates about a few thinly-drawn situations as he avoids both conflict and relationships. This makes for a personal narrative that feels impersonal. The observations the protagonist makes don't comment on anything outside the blatantly fictional circumstance; I find it difficult to connect them to anything in my life, or to experience another life vicariously through them.
Rightly or wrongly, I get the sense of an author "bravely" writing a character with...more
Rightly or wrongly, I get the sense of an author "bravely" writing a character with...more
So, so good. I've now read all three novels of Millet's cycle (what's it called? Michael Silverblatt gave it a name, but I can't recall it). In addition to all the wonderful qualities of her writing, Millet writes beautiful, stunning, strange, and quiet conclusions. Her beginnings seem a little rocky, and with each of the novels I had a bit of trouble getting inside the new protagonist's mind, finding a reading flow, immersing myself. At about one-third of the way I achieved it in each book. The...more
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Loved this one in particular and Lydia Millet in general. I call her General Millet. As in she is my leader. As in General Mills, I eat Millet for breakfast. Millet is also a grain, you see. Back to the book: couldn't put it down. The third-person narrator of Ghost Lights struck this balance between satiric and caring. The observations are sharp. I would cite some but I don't have the book on my person. The main character, Hal, must have been developed in the book before (Ghost Lights is the sec...more
This second book of Millet's trilogy, following the intrepid HOW THE DEAD DREAM, centers on middle-aged IRS bureaucrat, Hal Lindley, Susan's husband, both who were minor characters in the first book. Susan works for T., the protagonist of book one, the man who is missing in Belize, and presumed dead. You don't have to read the first book to engage with the second, but it adds more background and material on several of the characters (especially T.), and some more dimension and history on the sto...more
I thought this was well done but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book in Millet's trilogy/cycle How the Dead Dream. The book starts well, with that bleak black humor tinged with real warmth that chracterized the first book. Where T was young, energetic, and initially full of certainty, Hal is middle-aged, a bit stuck, and giving to indecision, but both main characters are driven far outside their emotional and geographic comfort zones in Belize and end up transformed. It just didn't feel...more
"People were like dogs and this was why they took pity on them--dogs alone all the hours of their days and always waiting. Always waiting for company. Dogs who, for all of their devotion, knew only the love of one or two or three people from the beginning of their lives till the end--dogs who, once those one or two had dwindled and vanished from the rooms they lived in, were never to be known again.
You passed like a dog through those empty houses, you passed through empty rooms . . . there was a...more
You passed like a dog through those empty houses, you passed through empty rooms . . . there was a...more
Jan 11, 2012
Brent
marked it as to-read
Last year I chose 15 books from the New York Times 100 notable books of 2010 list. So far I've read 5 of them with reactions ranging from absolute hatred to tepid amusement. I can resist trying it again though, so this is my list of 15 books from the NYT notable books of 2011 list that I picked to add to my reading list:
Angel Esmeralda -- Don Delillo
Leftovers -- Tom Perrotta
Buddha In The Attic -- Julie Otsuka
The Last Werewolf -- Glen Duncan
Mr. Fox -- Helen Oyeyemi
Come On All You Ghosts -- Matthe...more
Angel Esmeralda -- Don Delillo
Leftovers -- Tom Perrotta
Buddha In The Attic -- Julie Otsuka
The Last Werewolf -- Glen Duncan
Mr. Fox -- Helen Oyeyemi
Come On All You Ghosts -- Matthe...more
Pretty damn good. The book jacket description leads you to think there is going to be more between the protagonist Hal and an "intriguing German woman," but she is mostly just a symptom of his malaise, and the romance is a fleeting cameo. The ending, a sad end in Belize just as Hal is about to depart, was a bit too sudden for me--BAM! and a child killer swashbuckles onto the scene in the last chapter. Tragedy, befitting tragedy. Given that the book is a large meditation on the tragedy of a child...more
Spoiler Alert!! Wow. This book was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. That should have stopped me in my tracks right there. I wanted to put it down many times but there was always a new twist, a hook in the storyline that kept me reading. That's why I gave it two stars instead of one. Ultimately though, the book became too entangled with hooks and lines and never coalesced into any resolution - of anything! I kept thinking, 'what about'...'now wait'...'huh????' The ending, rare and brave, couldn't satis...more
In contrast to the first book of the trilogy--How the Dead Dream--Ghost Lights is pretty quiet. Less happens in terms of plot, instead focusing solely on Hal and how he goes about sorting himself after finding out that his wife is having an affair. Sure, tons of stuff happens--Hal goes to Belize to search for T., the star of How the Dead Dream, and while he's there, he gets tangled up with some radiant Germans, discovers the joy of drinking, and has an affair of his own. But so much of the writi...more
If we had 1/2 stars, I'd give this one 3 1/2. I really liked the writing in this book, and found Lydia Millet to have a wry sense of humor. While being poignant in parts, it is also quite amusing. Hal works for the IRS and has a wife and daughter. His daughter is a parapalegic and he cannot get over that tragedy. His love for his daughter streams through the novel right up until the end. After finding out that his wife is having an affair, he drunkenly volunteers to fly to Belize to look for her...more
This is the story of Hal, who goes through life just being; he is married to Susan who he believes is having an affair with a co-worker. They have a daughter who after having an accident is a paraplegic and her parents think she is a telemarketer, but in reality is a phone sex operator. Susan's boss is missing in Belize and Hal suggests that he himself travel down to there to find him. He is trying to prove that he is man enough for Susan or is he trying to add something that is missing from his...more
This is the story of Hal, who goes through life just being; he is married to Susan who he believes is having an affair with a co-worker. They have a daughter who after having an accident is a paraplegic and her parents think she is a telemarketer, but in reality is a phone sex operator. Susan’s boss is missing in Belize and Hal suggests that he himself travel down to there to find him. He is trying to prove that he is man enough for Susan or is he trying to add something that is missing from his...more
I rate this a low 2 stars. I stuck with it all the way to the end, but it was not a book I can say I enjoyed. In fact, I often found it annoying. Millet chose a protagonist she portrays as a world-class jerk and spends most of the book inside his head. Seems like a strange choice. His thoughts are rarely amusing, never enlightening and usually boring. Wasn’t Millet bored writing from his viewpoint?
On the other hand, she's a strong enough writer and storyteller that I kept on turning those pages....more
On the other hand, she's a strong enough writer and storyteller that I kept on turning those pages....more
I was prepared to like this book. Really. Reviews of Millet's novels and short stories gush about her terrific writing, and she's considered a smart, quirky, untraditional writer. And funny too. All things I like. Well, she IS funny, smart, quirky, etc.. And I didn't dislike the story of an emotionally frozen middle-aged man learning about himself when he impulsively travels to another country to find his wife's boss, who has disappeared. I liked the protagonist, Hal, for his humor (or rather, I...more
Hal is an IRS bureaucrat who, in a very contrived plot, ends up in Belize ostensibly to search for his wife’s employer. It appears that the author invented this character for the sole purpose of making him feel bad. Nevertheless, Hal has a few moments that are somewhat endearing and might lead a reader to carrying on with the story to the end to find out what happens to him. This is a mistake because the book only gets worse, culminating in an illusion of awareness that is notable for its superf...more
Ghost Lights is the second in Lydia Millet's interlocking cycle of narratives, following on from where How the Dead Dream finished, changing protagonists to focus not on T., but on Hal, the husband of Susan.
Similar to the previous book, Ghost Lights is a quiet novel, expanding Millet's thematic concern of extinction to take in a cultural focus, turning to the life of a middle aged man who works for the IRS and who, in the years since his daughter's accident, has become less and less a presence i...more
Similar to the previous book, Ghost Lights is a quiet novel, expanding Millet's thematic concern of extinction to take in a cultural focus, turning to the life of a middle aged man who works for the IRS and who, in the years since his daughter's accident, has become less and less a presence i...more
The sequel to How The Dead Dream, which I read in 2008. I read it twice, back to back, mainly because I couldn’t figure out what I thought of it. The protagonist is Hal, the 50 year old IRS-employed husband of Susan, employee of T, the young real estate developer who disappears in the earlier book. As the novel opens, Susan is distraught at T’s disappearance, and Hal discovers that Susan is having an affair with a paralegal in her office, and also finds out that his beloved paraplegic adult daug...more
While this is second in a (sort of) trilogy and I have not read the first, the storyline is straightforward and described in the blurb. The book moves at a fast clip and it is very readable but I cannot say it made a deep impression as it is another example of a novel about nothing so to speak and i really do not see its point - could read newspaper articles on its themes and while yes the author can write better than such, it still does not make for anything to stick with you
I'm a bit perplexed. The writing was so crisply fantastic that I kept waiting for something to happen, trusting the author completely. I was quite drawn in by the use of such acute details to outline a bigger story, but closed the last page in a bit of disbelief that all of it, seemingly, had been for nothing. I feel like I'm drifting. Maybe I just don't get it, but it weren't my cuppa tea. If the writing itself had not been so outstanding, I'd have given it a 1.5.
this book is critically acclaimed, but i totally didn't want to finish it. from the first page, it just left me hollow and disconnected, a three-legged dog in the world of four-legged beasts.
i don't know.
there are some nicely written parts but the story is not what you might assume from a book called "ghost lights" - it's not really a fantasy so much as a chronicle of a mid-life crisis or breakdown.
not my thing at all.
i don't know.
there are some nicely written parts but the story is not what you might assume from a book called "ghost lights" - it's not really a fantasy so much as a chronicle of a mid-life crisis or breakdown.
not my thing at all.
**** This is a Goodreads free book****
I wanted to like this book. The blurb sounded interesting. Unfortunately i didn't care much for it. The premise was good, the storyline was good. However the plot could have been completed in one chapter. The rest of the book was background and descriptions which went on page after page everytime the main character, Hal Lindley, had a thought. The story became more and more tedious the longer it went on. The ending was, I felt, totally uninspired and even th...more
I wanted to like this book. The blurb sounded interesting. Unfortunately i didn't care much for it. The premise was good, the storyline was good. However the plot could have been completed in one chapter. The rest of the book was background and descriptions which went on page after page everytime the main character, Hal Lindley, had a thought. The story became more and more tedious the longer it went on. The ending was, I felt, totally uninspired and even th...more
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Born in Boston in 1968, Lydia Millet moved to Toronto, Canada with her Egyptologist father and teacher/librarian mother two years later. She received a Master's in Environmental Policy at Duke University and moved to New York in 1996, where she worked as a fundraiser for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In 1999 she went freelance and moved to Tucson, where she now lives and writes full-time...more
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“Then he would get into a plane and leave the field wide open; the field was crammed with paralegals, all of them stoutly armed with condoms.”
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