A Pure Clear Light Book

Beautifully observed and smartly written, at once poignant and humorous, as witty as it is wise, this novel fixes an unflinching eye on the modern, nearly perfect marriage of Flora and Simon Beaufort as it goes awry. None of it might have happened, though, if Flora had not gone off to France with her three lovely children on a holiday and left her husband behind in their comfortable London home. Or if Simon, a TV film director whose long hours keep him away from his family and the script of his movie masterpiece-in-progress, had not visited a cool, blond, thirtyish accountant named Gillian. Or if Lydia Faraday had not spotted Simon and Gillian cocooned in intimacy at a crowded brasserie. Or if the once devoutly Christian Flora had not vaguely sensed that something had gone missing in her life, and concluded it was God. Simon succumbs to the fruits of fleshly temptation. Flora pursues a renewed faith. But neither can escape the revelation that stands beyond their excuses and candor in this deliciously devised tale about the phenomenon called love.Read More