The Light Possessed

by Alan Cheuse, Rick Bass (Foreword)

The Light Possessed focuses on Ava Boldin, who begins her solitary and single-minded journey to become a great artist as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago in the years before World War I. Her life and art dramatically change when she meets and marries Albert Stigmar, a New York photographer and gallery owner nearly twice her age. Though he successfully promotes her work in an art world dominated by men, she is drawn to the desert Southwest where "it was as though a fire had broken out above the horizon in a sky made of paper, and it was consuming the very stuff of darkness." Ultimately she turns her back on the New York art establishment and embraces the landscape and light of New Mexico, where she seeks to nurture the intensity of her artistic vision at Blue Mesa.

Genres: Art

330 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

American writer and critic.
For more than two decades, Alan Cheuse has served as NPRs voice of books. He is the author of three novels, including The Grandmothers Club and The Light Possessed, several collections of short stories, and a pair of novellas recently published in The Fires. He is also the editor of Seeing Ourselves: Great Early American Short Stories and co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book. Stories and co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book."
Forthcoming in March, 2015, the novel
Prayers for the Living...
Born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Cheuse grew up in a Jewish family, the son of a Russian immigrant father and a mother of Russian and Romanian descent

Reviews

[Julie Seager · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I got to think of him a lot that night after bedtime when I stole from my room and went out onto the patio and stood beneath a great cascade of stars — stars stars stars stars stars — a balcony of stars — more stars — wondering what was to become of me.”

“That life was nothing but these encounters with the light.”

[Ellen Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I lost interest about halfway through and gave up, can't really say why. It is hard to keep the characters straight, being written from several different points of view. Interesting learning more about Ga O'Keefe's life, but didn't really know what was real and what fiction.

[Joann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I throughly enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was beautifully written and let me into to parts of lives that I could never have visited without this novel which is really a connection of stories. It was a delightful and fascinating read.

[David Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love this book.