Mourning Light

“Compelling and moving. The novel deals with life after death and the belief of what we know and don’t. It is a story that comes from the heart, one of grief, heartbreak, and a new beginning… . The novel is part love story, part autobiographical, and entirely interesting. It seamlessly cuts through the scenes, moving between the internal monologues and dialogues well without coming across as messy, and does a good job at showing the intricacies of queer love in the 80s and the grief that follows death. It is an important story, one that is told with sharp wit and elegance all the same.”–The Masters Review“A love story that borders on obsession, an engaging mystery, a meditation on how our relationships evolve even after death, and, finally, a reimagining of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. I found myself entertained, moved, and greatly admiring of Goodkin’s ability to write a novel of such elegance, complexity, and wit.”–Ken Harvey, author of The Book of Casey Adair“A warm, romantic, intelligently written novel. The love story within a love story, set in the era of the AIDS epidemic, is clever, layered, and entertaining even as it deals with loss. It is delightful to read the story of Reb and Anthony falling in love, and moving too because we know where it all ends. We need more stories to document that particularly important and heartbreaking time.”–Lori Soderlind, author of The Change: My Great American, Postindustrial, Midlife Crisis Tour

Richard Goodkin is a professor of French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published five monographs on seventeenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century French literature and a historical novel, written in French, about Molière’s mistress and collaborator, Madeleine Béjart.