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The Illumination
The Illumination: A Novel | Kevin Brockmeier
5 posts | 12 read | 7 to read
What if our pain was the most beautiful thing about us?From best-selling and award-winning author Kevin Brockmeier: a new novel of stunning artistry and imagination about the wounds we bear and the light that radiates from us all.At 8:17 on a Friday night, the Illumination commences. Every wound begins to shine, every bruise to glow and shimmer. And in the aftermath of a fatal car accident, a private journal of love notes, written by a husband to his wife, passes into the keeping of a hospital patient and from there through the hands of five other suffering people, touching each of them uniquely.I love the soft blue veins on your wrist. I love your lopsided smile. I love watching TV and shelling sunflower seeds with you. The six recipientsa data analyst, a photojournalist, a schoolchild, a missionary, a writer, and a street vendorinhabit an acutely observed, beautifully familiar yet particularly strange universe, as only Kevin Brockmeier could imagine it: a world in which human pain is expressed as illumination, so that ones wounds glitter, fluoresce, and blaze with light. As we follow the journey of the book from stranger to stranger, we come to understand how intricately and brilliantly they are connected, in all their human injury and experience.From the Hardcover edition.
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rwmg
The Illumination: A Novel | Kevin Brockmeier
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review
rwmg
The Illumination: A Novel | Kevin Brockmeier
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Pickpick

A series of linked stories set in a world where pain starts showing as light shining from the sick part of the body.

This change didn't have the effects I (and at least 1 of the characters) expected nor did the book go in directions I thought it might, but it was beautifully written. This is the 2nd of the author's books I've read and I'm really looking forward to reading others of these lovely and unexpected explorations of unlikely premises.

Flaneurette Love this book and still think about it years later 12mo
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rwmg
The Illumination: A Novel | Kevin Brockmeier
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👏👍

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rwmg
The Illumination: A Novel | Kevin Brockmeier
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ShyBookOwl Not the best tool choice 😅 12mo
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olyvianne
The Illumination: A Novel | Kevin Brockmeier
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One day everyone starts giving off light from where they feel pain, and this book is sort of about what happens after. It's extremely good. Several different perspectives with a unifying thread. One chapter is written entirely in ten-word sentences. HIGHLY recommend, and I'll be reading more from ol' Kev.