Every
now and then you get the distinct and renowned pleasure of reading a book that
changes everything you think you know. A
book that makes you view the world in a whole new way because it shakes your
very foundation, and that book is “The
Light of A Bright Sun” by Thurman P. Banks Jr.
(This review is based on my reading a pre-production copy of the book) This is Banks second foray into the literary
world and Banks has risen to new and glorious heights with this masterpiece
that you will not be able to put down.
Banks is the unknown author whose name should be on all of of our
lips. He simply is that good!
The narrative text begins in present
day, but a good portion of the book is also set in the past. First July 27th, 1976 a date which
changes the entire course of one story, August 1986—which is where a good bulk
of the story is told, February 1987, and April 1987—which is where the
remaining fair portion of the story is told.
The timelines are well thought out, well constructed and we flip-flop
between the present and past very easily.
The reader is left with no questions unanswered and no way of not
knowing exactly when and where we are. The
literary narrative could not have been told without this changing of timeframes,
and in this case is one of many strong points to which Banks has brilliantly
achieved.
The first four pages of the text we
are set in present in day, in what we are lead to believe is a hospital room
with someone connected to a heart monitor.
Characters within the first four pages are not given any names and this
type of narrative is vividly played out until the final chapter when these
characters are revealed. This theme of
mystery is cleverly and wonderfully sets into motion a stage of intrigue that
commands you to continue to turn the pages.
It is this aspect alone that kept this reader guessing at these
characters identities until the very end when this reader was pleasantly
surprised at the outcome. One quote from
this book I believe sets the entire stage to which this masterful text is set:
“I’ve slipped into madness again, he
thinks, laughing lightly. So be it if I
am in the middle of madness, he assures himself, you have to be a little crazy
to truly stay sane in this world anyhow” (Banks Jr. 2).
Set in the “coastal Connecticut town of
Hayward” (Banks Jr. 5)
the story really begins July 27th, 1976 with the main character
Thomas Thompson, not Tommy but Thomas, an eight year-old boy that Banks calls a
“hero without a cape—living a life of created greatness in an unhurried world
and overachieving mind” (Banks Jr. 5). Thomas after a game of baseball makes the
simple decision to walk home rather than ride his bike. This simple decision sets us into “Fifteen
unwanted minutes (that) can change a life however, and not always for the best”
(Banks Jr. 6). For it is in walking home that Thomas is brutally
raped by two teenage boys, who happen to be the residents of Laro School.
“Only tears and terror remained as he
whispered in shock to the wind, “I’m a boy.
I’m a boy” (Banks Jr. 10)…. They left him there, naked and
betrayed by his own purity…let God be the raped child if he so allows his
children to be treated that way, and then maybe we’ll see where his faith
resides” (Banks Jr. 11)
This violent act sets into motion a narrative
within the text that makes Beverly Weston of the “August: Osage County” fame and her story look like June Cleaver and
“Leave it To Beaver”. This best can be seen within the text when
Banks writes:
“Madness—that is what our lives truly
are—a bundle of thoughts and lies, which like strings, we know are destined to
break, yet we still continue to hang ourselves upon” (Banks Jr. 15).
What sets the narrative apart from
stories similar to “August: Osage County”
is Banks incredible skill at telling stories that are both brutal and moving,
horrible yet inspirational and painful truths in which we grow and grow beyond
our wildest imaginations. Banks has us
“One minute spent kneeling in glory, the next for a lifetime of pain” (Banks Jr. 16) which is what Prudence Cecilia
Main or better known as Prudie and or Mumma does; and especially after her
husband, Joseph, abandons her and Thomas.
Prudie is twenty-seven years old when
this event happens and sends Prudie into a tailspin of religion and possible
mental instability. But Banks in a
moment of true clarity says, “If prayer truly worked, would there really be any
need to keep praying” (Banks Jr. 42). This theme of religion versus
faith and childlike believe are “toyed’ with by Banks in ways that are new,
challenging and creatively dealt with in a fashion that this reader has not
seen before. All aspects of the ideas of
religion, faith, belief, trust, hope and forgiveness are exquisitely dealt with
and we the reader walk away not only where these characters stand in these
issues; but we, I believe, are also given insight into what Banks knows to be
true.
Time passes, as it must, and Prudie meets
and ends up marrying a man she met in a bar named William Theodore Crowley or
better known as Willy. Banks describes Willy as:
“A regular predator (womanizer)—the tall
and handsome handful as he had been dubbed by the barflies (Banks Jr. 18)… the lazy
dreamer, so uncoordinated he would trip over his own feet (Banks Jr. 20).
Willy is an alcoholic and has a tendency
to cruelty. This cruelty that is played
out throughout the two hundred fifty nine-page text and, the height of this can
be seen when Willy gives Thomas a cross-hook that ends up in eight stitches.
But it is Thomas who has a “fear of the known and unknown…a worry of the world
that would forever hang on his shoulders” (Banks Jr. 49)
Willy and Prudie are destined for a life
of hardships and not merely for the fact that Prudie is pregnant. Willy is
hopeful it will be a boy, but fate deals a cruel hand when Maybeline is
born. Not only is Maybeline, nicknamed
Maybe, is a girl but she has Down Syndrome.
This simple act of birth causes Willy to despise life and fate even
more; for what kind of God would cause such things to happen. However, it is
Maybe that teaches Thomas and us the reader:
“That life is nothing more than a mirror,
and what we see in others, is often no more than a reflection of
ourselves. But even a person with sight
can be blind” (Banks Jr. 49).
It is the character of Maybe that brings---
this incredible story of struggle, pain, loss and grief ---some form of hope. It is in Maybe’s “disability” that hope,
faith and ultimately triumph emerges. Even when Pastor Carr, Mumma’s minister
violently rapes Maybe when she is ten years old, Maybe rises above the violence,
the horror and the pain in a singular act of true forgiveness, that left this
reader crying and struggling still some twenty-seven years later to emotionally
forgive his rapist.
Pastor Carr has a daughter Mary Sue who
is also a pivotal player, even though she is a bit of a slut in the beginning
of the story. But even our first notions
of Mary Sue are skewed when we learn that Mary Sue has been the victim of
incest at the hands of her own father. This theme of sexual abuse and assault
is a reoccurring one within the text and Banks, in my opinion, has a true and
deep understanding of this issue that many authors do not. It is when Thomas is eighteen or nineteen
years old that she has a sexual dalliance with Thomas even though she is
engaged to Roger Burdick who is in the military.
There is another mystery to the real father
of Mary Sue’s child, and why I do not want to give away to much of this
storyline—as it is one of Banks strongest and most moving storylines—I will say
I was surprised at the outcome because Banks draws such a believable story to
which we belief as “gospel”.
There are moments of extreme violence in
this book but Banks does not go into theatrics or gore for gores sake within
what he has written. There is an ease
and simplistic beauty to even though most violent of scenes and a metaphysical
growth that comes from this story of deep pain and forgiveness.
By the end when Banks has so entrenched us into
his masterful story that we reading faster than we thought imagined—simply so
we can read the text, to get to the next part of the story--- we are drawn into
the most painful and beautifully written story I have ever read. It has an ease of moments that are much like Nicholas
Sparks “The Notebook”, it has a touch
of “Philadelphia” and a smattering of
“Precious”; but make no mistake this
book is none of those things and yet we are reminded of a more tender,
compassionate time that by the last page left me weeping.
Banks
is a literary force to be reckoned with, and with a teaser of his next novel “Between the Heavens” at the end of this
one--- I predict a glorious future for this “new” writer. A future that has me running to buy this book
or any other he happens to pen. Thank
you Thurman for an incredible journey with characters who have become family:
“Most of us slither away from the light
by way of machine or man, in senility rather than divinity, never to resurrect
ourselves, as if unable to climb up the mountain. We fade away in the depth of our souls, here
one moment, gone the next. How
tragic. How beautiful. How human” (Banks Jr. 252).
This
is one book everyone should write. Banks
has risen above and beyond his first book “Beyond John Dunn” which was
spectacular as well, but this, if possible is even better. Run out today and buy your copy!
