Another book about family. Written beautifully, to be sure, but like Anne Enright's The Green Road, not worthy of the Booker.
An old woman named Anne, suffering from dementia and the loss of her life long love, Harry. She speaks to a rabbit, who isn't real, and heats up tins of soup for him in the microwave.
Her grandson, Luke, who is a Captain with his troop in Afghanistan, led by the Major into a wedding feast which goes horribly wrong.
Her daughter, Alice, an aloof woman with some validity to her attitude as we come to find out at the conclusion of the novel.
The illuminations refer to more than the beautiful lights in Blackpool. They also refer to how we discover who we are, often with great pain. They refer to the peeling back of shadows under which we live our life in apparent illusion.
I like the concentric circles on the cover. I like how they indicate that we come from a core which is our family, imperfect at best. I liked this book. But, I didn't love it. (Quite possibly nothing after A Little Life will be able to affect me in such a powerful way.)
