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When Light Is Like Water

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When Light Is Like Water

By: Molly McCloskey
Narrated by: Katie Beudert
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of When Light is Like Water by Molly McCloskey, read by Katie Beudert.

'There are few things on earth smaller than this country.'

Alice, a young American on her travels, arrives in the west of Ireland with no plans and no strong attachments - except to her beloved mother, who raised her on her own. She falls in love with an Irishman, marries him, and settles down in a place whose codes she struggles to crack. And then, in the course of a single hot summer, she embarks on an affair that breaks her marriage and sets her life on a new course.

Years later, in the aftermath of her mother's death, Alice finds herself back in Ireland and contemplating the forces that led her to put down roots and then tear them up again. What drew her to her husband, and what pulled her away? And how do we know when we've found our place in the world?

When Light is Like Water is at once a gripping story of passion and ambivalence and a profound meditation on the things that matter most: the definition of love, the value of family and the meaning of home.

 Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural Marriage

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Critic reviews

Adultery is often sentimentalised in fiction, but in her ferociously well written second novel Molly McCloskey gives it to us straight ... Each brilliant vignette offers a new angle on Alice's ballooning sense of disorientation ... In spite of its lyrical title and exquisite prose, When Light Is Like Water is a brutal examination of sextual self-delusion. But it also has much that's memorable to say about love - not the affair kind, but the real thing... McCloskey writes with shattering insight on loss and the way that it can make us feel tender towards the world
Powerful ... When Light Is Like Water is a tender depiction of love and loss that combines the personal pull of a memoir with the precision of a short story ... McCloskey's novel is packed with wisdom, and never heavy-handed with it. The details of the affair and the tawdry aspect of forbidden desire are brilliantly related
McCloskey describes everything with a luminous exactitude ... It's entirely beguiling
A thoughtful meditation on connection set against the backdrop of a world on the move ... Though McCloskey has no shortage of ideas, she also engages the heart: she's particularly good on the contrariness of our desires ... Fans of Anne Enright will find much to admire and enjoy.
Luminous ... As a narrator, Alice is a combination of coolness and intensity, passion and unsentimentality, nostalgia and clear-sightedness
McCloskey has the observational eye of the outsider, able to pinpoint the intricacies and mannerisms of the Irish people and landscape. ... But the writing's the thing. Oh, the writing. McCloskey is the master of the metaphor, the doyenne of the deceptively simple sentence. ... Hers is a wondrous turn of phrase, and yet somehow it makes Alice's life and interiority seem all the more real
Brilliant ... The author's ability to stir serendipity while steadily evoking atmosphere is remarkable ... McCloskey has a limpid, even liquid style: it's as if you were surreptitiously reading someone's chatty and extremely revealing letter ... Rest assured, When Light Is Like Water will feature on a few end-of-year lists
Refreshing ... McCloskey is an expert storyteller
When Light is Like Water is as gripping as a memoir and as intimate as a poem. Molly McCloskey has written a novel that is both urgent and reflective, a tender and unsentimental exploration of love's dark corners. It is brilliant: her finest book yet.
Molly McCloskey's prose has such immense authority, precision and seriousness. This shimmering, beautiful, restless work will stir recognitions without seeming to try. If you've ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with - as who hasn't, once or twice - be prepared to encounter the novel as mirror, her finest book to date, a triumph. (Joseph O'Connor)
All stars
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I loved this book, it rolled along beautifully drawing the reader into Alice’s deep thinking mind. It was thought provoking, sensitive, selfish at times, ponderous and filled with every kind of love. Beautifully written, perfect prose the likes of which is rare. The narrator held my attention and had the perfect tone pitch and accent.

The language though ordinary, is other worldly.

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