A Certain Slant of Light is the story of Helen, a spirit who has not moved on, and James, a fellow spirit who has found a way to be alive.
It begins with Helen as she standing in a classroom with her "host", a living person that she cleaves to in order to anchor herself. Mr Brown is a high school English teacher. In this ghost story, the spirits do not necessarily interact with the living in the cliche way. The spirit cannot remember their past life. They can see the human world but the humans cannot see the spirits. To add to a spirit's loneliness, a spirit cannot see another spirit. It is an existence of extreme isolation.
So it comes as a surprise to Helen when a boy walks into the classroom and takes notice of her.
James is a spirit who inadvertently found a way to become alive. When a boy named Billy exits his body after a drug overdose, James entered his body. Not to possess him but to save him. Because Billy's spirit is now absent, James resides in the body and he can see Helen.
With his help, Helen learns to do the same thing and so begins their courtship that brings both a happiness and a reprieve from their loneliness.
Yet, the bodies that they inhabit have painful histories of their own that they cannot escape or avoid. Billy has a history of drug abuse. Jenny, the girl that Helen chose, has problems with her controlling parents.
As Helen and James learn more about the lives of the hosts, they gradually recall the details of their own past life. Helen, in particular, is in pain for something that she cannot remember. The conflict that they discover in themselves and in their young hosts and the path to resolution for all of them is the main focus of the plot.
And Ms Whitcomb does a masterful job of weaving a story that encompasses melancholy, joy, loneliness, forgiveness, spirituality and the need for people (in life and death) to connect. In Helen, she creates a heroine whose longing for something is tangible and her romance with James is touching and genuine.
There are a few drawbacks. The first is that the pacing can drag at times as the prose gets a little too lyrical. The close of the novel also seems to wrap up too quickly as if there was a rush at the end. It seems a bit more marked because of the leisurely pace up to the end. The last criticism (for lack of a better word) is that the reader might find that the resolution doesn't give enough information about what happens in the living world so the reader is left to trust that all will work out.
But these might be quibbles more than criticisms.
On the whole, this was a unique entry into the paranormal subgenre that is popular right now. With its flowing prose and intriguing characters, A Certain Slant of Light is an enjoyable and satisfying read.
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