BSI November selection

October Light by John Gardner is not a light, easy read.

On the surface the novel centers on feuding geriatric siblings, James Paige and Sally Abbott. Younger brother James allows his down-on-her-luck widowed sister Sally to live with him, but after butting heads over politics and the morality of television, locks her in a room with a book.

Gardner uses October Light (and the novel-within-the-novel), set during the bicentennial, to comment about liberal and conservative American politics, racial bias and gender inequity as well as America’s past and future.

The novel is by turns ridiculous, laugh-aloud funny, intriguing, boring, genius and obscure--which is exactly how many critics and readers described its author, John Gardner (not to be confused with the British thriller writer, John Gardner). [Discussion questions can be found here.]

Once known as a sarcastic bad boy of literary criticism, Gardner is best known for his books On Moral Fiction and Grendel, a retelling of Beowulf from the monster’s perspective.

October Light won the 1976 National Book Critics Circle Award. Currently the National Book Critics Circle, a non-profit organization, consists of more than 900 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns.

Gardner spoke of his critique on the literary establishment (and their response) in On Moral Fiction in an interview with Don Swain and Gil Gross for Wired for Books little more than a year before his accidental death.

While it is difficult to truly recommend October Light, there are gems of excellent writing and great wit to be found in its pages. Gardner’s use of James and Sally’s intestinal complaints to symbolically illustrate the differences between liberal and conservative political thought as well as the laugh-out-loud first meeting of Father Hernandez and Sally through the bedroom door is worth the price of October Light’s numerous rambling passages.