FEBRUARY 2014 - AudioFile
This dystopian novel begins with a 4-year-old being abandoned by her parents. Kevin T. Collins provides a confident voice for this dark new world in which the government is the supreme authority and the orphaned protagonist is shuffled from one orphanage to another. The minute details involved in the descriptions of the characters and settings may be distracting in print, but Collins makes them engaging by varying his tone, pitch, and pace. He evokes pity for the child without going over the top. M.R. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Jiles’s latest (following The Color of Lighting) is a lyrical take on dystopian fiction set in an arid, borderless future in which a surfeit population has caused the totalitarian government’s Agencies to resort to drastic survival measures. “People disappeared but everybody pretended not to notice and stayed neutral and colorless like fabric lampshades.” Nadia Stepan, deserted by her family when she was four, leads a lonely existence centered on her fantasies about living on Lighthouse Island, a magical place advertised on TV, promising serenity in a natural setting. A chance encounter leads her to James Orotov, a mysterious man who says he has knowledge of her long-imagined destination and possible safe routes to it. Nadia must learn to trust James while hoping that the technical know-how and connections he claims to possess will be enough to travel safely without arousing the suspicion of the authorities. The dangerous plot James hatches is like that of one of Nadia’s beloved classic novels. The real test, however, consists of living without the restrictions that have defined their existences up until now. Jiles’s prose is a striking match for the barren landscape of this moody adventure tale. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Oct.)
New York Times Book Review on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
[I]nventive futurism and rollicking wit.
Columbus Dispatch on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
The dystopian novel is beautifully written, and Jiles’ scenes of [protagonist] Nadia navigating the crumbling cityscape and her surreal interactions with the many desperate characters are vivid, shocking and often darkly funny.
San Antonio Express-News on LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND
Lighthouse Island is a beacon of hope for Nadia, the clever, resourceful young heroine of Paulette Jiles’ spellbinding new novel. . . . Jiles’ writing is crisp and vivid as always, and although her setting is vastly different, her themes—independence, individuality, love of the land—remain intact.
Seattle Times on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING
Jiles’ spare and melancholy prose is the perfect language for this tale in which survival necessitates brutality.
New York Times Book Review on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING
A gripping, deeply relevant book.
Washington Post on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING
[A] meticulously researched and beautifully crafted story . . . this is glorious work.
Denver Post on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING
A remarkably engaging story. . . . Jiles’s description is memorable and evocative.
FEBRUARY 2014 - AudioFile
This dystopian novel begins with a 4-year-old being abandoned by her parents. Kevin T. Collins provides a confident voice for this dark new world in which the government is the supreme authority and the orphaned protagonist is shuffled from one orphanage to another. The minute details involved in the descriptions of the characters and settings may be distracting in print, but Collins makes them engaging by varying his tone, pitch, and pace. He evokes pity for the child without going over the top. M.R. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
A quest novel set in the future, when America has become a vast megalopolis divided into "Gerrymanders" and water is a scarce resource in a new "Drought Age." At the age of 4, Raisa is abandoned by her parents and taken to an orphanage. She officially becomes a PD--a Parentless Dependent--and is given a new name, Nadia Stepan. Although she has an eye condition that temporarily renders her blind, Nadia learns from television (which pervades the culture, along with Big Radio) about Lighthouse Island, a land presented as a Utopian refuge from all that ails the vast city that America has turned into. It's presented as a place of "no buildings, no water rationing, only landforms, and random plants, fossils, silence, solitude, [and] mountains...." We also learn of James Orotov, a paraplegic meteorologist and demolitions expert fascinated by geography, whose maps lead to suspicions of his being guilty of "[c]artographical treason." Nadia eventually grows up and becomes adept at lying as a survival technique, and when Oversupervisor Blanche Warren discovers that she has had an affair with Blanche's husband, Nadia decides to escape by going to Lighthouse Island. Eventually, her path crosses with James', and he explains to her the vastness--and perhaps impossibility--of her undertaking. Nadia and James in due course fall in love and get married--and help each other on the long journey north to Lighthouse Island. When they arrive, they find it's scarcely the Utopia it's cracked up to be. Jiles writes beautifully but paces the novel glacially.
