Review by Amanda Marbais

Kim Magowan’s novel, The Light Source, begins with a perfect distillation of the complicated nature of friendships that span decades. We open with a group of twenty-somethings reflecting on the painful realities brought on by adulthood: struggling with commitment, surviving old grudges, and pining for some prior moment when they meant more to each other. They agonize over the past and are often paralyzed regarding the future. The first person to narrate is Ian Saltonstall who encapsulates this dynamic of contorting one’s identity through some level of self-deception, which is at the heart of this novel: “Our friendship is staked on my willingness to slough off being an ex.”

Each character is startlingly influenced by the occasionally distorted gaze of others. Characters are molded into an image that others carefully craft. When disappointed, characters engage in that kind of relationship-autopsy we are all guilty of. Yet, Magowan saves them from self-pity, peeling back layers of their protective emotions to expose the most fragile moments in their search for authenticity.

While traveling to assuage her grief and guilt, the main character, Heather Katchadourian thinks, “Language was not intended to communicate, but to disassemble, to conceal.” This idea is repeated throughout the novel. But Magowan brings us to realities so powerful, they crack open each character in earnest.

Heather often sheds light on the nature of notoriously difficult relationships in a way that feels familiar, even if we weren’t this bold — “When I was thirteen my mother called me a slut and I said, takes one to know one.” She brutally analyzes her own vulnerability regarding the woman she betrayed — “Julie […] Without you, I scatter. Without you, I disappear.” It’s in these revelations of faults and missteps that we see a fearless honesty in the novel’s most compelling character.

These flashes of insight also bring the reader to their own moments of self-reflection. We can see ourselves in characters, who, left to their own devices regularly become their own worst enemy. Who are we to the world? Do we just reflect another’s pain, lust, or romantic fantasy? These are the questions the novel inspires, and it’s enjoyable to sit with the emotions and self-scrutiny brought on by memories of our own experiences with intimacy.

In our lives, the image people hold of us is likely transitory and subjective. In the novel, it is sometimes destructive with a force that lasts decades. At other times, it touches the deepest part of another. In The Light Source, we’re allowed to share revelatory moments, a voyeur with a hidden camera positioned in these characters’ lives. We’re reminded that those important moments when we are really seen by another can haunt us, shaping our very existence. “I felt time reverse. I was in the front seat of the car again, and she was opening her wide-set eyes to watch me watch her.”

The Light Source
Kim Magowan
7.13 Books
ISBN: 978-1732868663