The Dying of the Light

Summary (from the publisher): From the author of the bestselling A Reliable Wife comes a dramatic, passionate tale of a glamorous Southern debutante who marries for money and ultimately suffers for love—the literary love-child of William Faulkner and Dominick Dunne.

It begins with a house and ends in ashes . . .

Diana Cooke was "born with the century" and came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early that her parents had only one asset, besides her famous beauty: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth, which has hosted the crème of society and Hollywood royalty. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations.

The mysterious Captain Copperton is an outsider with no bloodline but plenty of cash. Seeing the ravishing nineteen-year-old Diana for the first time, he’s determined to have her. Diana knows that marrying him would make the Cookes solvent and ensure that Saratoga will always be theirs. Yet Copperton is cruel as well as vulgar; while she admires his money, she cannot abide him. Carrying the weight of Saratoga and generations of Cookes on her shoulders, she ultimately succumbs to duty, sacrificing everything, including love.

Luckily for Diana, fate intervenes. Her union with Copperton is brief and gives her a son she adores. But when her handsome, charming Ashton, now grown, returns to Saratoga with his college roommate, the real scandal and tragedy begins.

Reveling in the secrets, mores, and society of twentieth-century genteel Southern life, The Dying of the Light is a romance, a melodrama, and a cautionary tale told with the grandeur and sweep of an epic Hollywood classic.

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this novel from HarperCollins.

Told from the perspective of an unnamed reporter investigating the Cooke family, this novel explores the story of Diane Cooke, who was born into a prominent Virginia family that own the largest home in the state, known as Saratoga. However, the family's fortunes have diminished, and in order to maintain their mansion and estate, Diana must find a wealthy husband. Therefore, she sells herself to Captain Copperton, a mysterious outsider with the funds to keep her home in style but not a marriage built on love or kindness. While her marriage is a failure, Diana finds joy in her son Ashton, but when Ashton returns home with his college roommate Gibby, Saratoga is plunged into scandal and tragedy.

I love a good historical fiction novel and this novel held a lot of promise with its grand old mansion full of Southern history and grace, its beautiful but spirited debutante, and the mysterious and wealthy captain. However, the writing was overwrought and melodramatic. Few of the characters are particularly likeable. Even Diana, who is supposedly full of beauty, charm, and grace, is cold to her servants and not especially endearing, nor is her son Ashton. Part of the issue is that most characters are stereotypes - the beautiful Southern belle and the rich older bachelor, for instance - rather than fully fleshed out characters. In reality, the most interesting characters are the ones in the wings of the story, including Lucius who comes to restore books and Rose who comes to help redecorate Saratoga. Both are odd, tragic, homosexual, with no home, partners, or true place in society. While they were the most intriguing characters in the novel, it felt as if the author wasn't quite sure what to do with their characters and the parallels between the two characters felt intentional yet without meaning. Furthermore, (and I won't spoil it by naming which ones) Goolrick seems to reach for killing off many of his characters as an easy conclusion rather than coming up with a more compelling resolution.

An element of the narrative I found odd and somewhat jarring was its tendency to switch between third persona and second person, almost as if the narrator is forcing the reader to stand in Diana's shoes, "The memory never leaves you, the expectation of return, corners of your lonely heart that cannot be illuminated, no matter how fiercely you may love" (155). Of course, beyond this, I'm not sure that Goolrick entirely successfully pulls off a novel with a female main character. The only time Diana feels loved is when she's naked and in bed with a man and her love for her son feels borderline incestuous, and only expressed through intimate physical acts like rubbing his feet while he lies in bed or through implausible grand speeches about the depth of her love.

This was an atmospheric, gothic work of historical fiction, steeped in history and full of tragedy, death, and destruction. Despite my disappointments with the narrative style and depth of the characterization, the pull of the great manse and my eagerness to discover what happened to the characters and the house kept me reading until the end.

Stars: 3