White Light

by Vanessa Garcia

Named one of NPR's Best Books of 2015
Just before her father’s sudden death, Cuban-American artist Veronica Gonzalez is offered her first gallery exhibit, a real chance to break into the art world. Torn between the need to mourn and the pressure to create new artwork, Veronica is propelled into a fever-dream of productivity and grief, amidst memories of her tumultuous relationship with her colorful but infuriating Cuban émigré father, a volatile man of outsize appetites and passions who never stopped longing for his homeland. Praised by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka for its “lyrical pace and texture,” White Light maps a young woman’s struggle to distill her grief, rage, and love onto the canvas.

Genres: Fiction, Womens

292 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2015

About the author

Vanessa Garcia is a multidisciplinary writer who has written for Sesame Street and Caillou among other shows. Her debut novel, White Light, was named one of the Best Books of 2015 by NPR, it also won an International Latino Book Award. Her plays – most recently the immersive hit The Amparo Experience -- have been produced around the world. She co-hosts a podcast about family with her mother and sister, called Never the Empty Nest. As a journalist and essayist, her pieces have appeared in The LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Review, ESPN, among others. She holds a PhD from the University of California Irvine.

Reviews

[Rosalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm the publisher, so I'm biased. : )

[Susanna Sturgis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This first novel by a very accomplished writer (and artist) is moving, beautifully written, and creatively designed. If you're intrigued by the interplay of the literary and visual arts, or by how we juggle art, love, grief, family, and making a living, do check this one out.

Shortly after Miami artist Veronica Gonzalez is offered a high-stakes one-woman gallery show, her father takes sick suddenly and dies. Their relationship has been tense, often tempestuous, for years. When she was a teenager, he gave her the VW microbus she'd dreamed of as a birthday gift -- then repossessed it three months later when she called her mother's second husband "a nice guy."

In sections each headed by a color of the spectrum, Veronica calls up and blends her memories of her father, her ongoing connections to other members of her Cuban-American family, and her uneasiness with her OK-but-going-nowhere relationship with her boyfriend, channeling them into the work she's undertaken for the relentlessly approaching gallery show.

Braided into the story is Leo, a young poet friend from her New York days, whose beloved older brother died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. His unauthorized daily readings from his brother's journal at Ground Zero draw an audience, attract media attention, and even get him arrested -- a significant risk because of his dicey immigration status.

While exploring universal themes, Vanessa Garcia revels in down-to-earth specifics. That's a big part of what I love about this novel: it pulled me into worlds I know next to nothing about -- the art world, the mind of a visual artist, the Miami cityscape, the family life of those who move easily from Spanish to English and back again -- and made them familiar. White Light is a book I'll be reading again in the not-too-distant future.

[Vivian · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Cuban born Miamian, when I read things like "freakia" or "Mi hormigita" or "I just wanted to go to Tamiami Park", I'm so in! Vanessa Garcia's story of growing up in a Cuban-American family is like all other Cuban-American stories... familiar. But not a boring kind of sameness. More like the feeling you get when you open a Christmas present; it makes you smile, often times laugh out loud and sometimes makes you emotional enough to cry. We are not a boring people and this is not a typical book.
~ I highly recommend this. What a wonderful read and an amazing debut novel!

[Émilie]

3.85⭐️

[Gerald Hornsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It’s a good story story, and a great book.”

One of the best two books I've read this year (the other was Booker winner The Sellout). This was an amazing read.
Very well written, artfully constructed, skilfully executed. Through the family story of the main character, we are propelled along her struggle with her father’s death, the break up of her relationship, and her attempts to create works of art for her first solo art exhibition. We see how the tumult of her life gets expressed through her art.
This was a book I enjoyed a lot. Even though I was on a strict deadline for the Literary Roadhouse Bookclub podcast, I wasn’t tempted to rush the reading. The pace was steady, but relentless, and as a reader, I was fully inside the mind of the main character. There are some beautiful parts to her writing. Talking about Dominican food in Little Haiti (in Miami), she says: “It’s all a jumble, Miami. Like a crossword puzzle without clues.”
A wonderful book.

[Sandra de Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book because I read about the publisher. They claim to publish only great literary fiction by LGBTQ and apparently also by POC who are not in the LGBTQ arena. I read 100 pages of this book, aggravated the whole time by the narrator’s attitude toward her fat father, and by her own anorexia (touted as a virtue, imo), but when the narrator wrote about the joy of giving a blow job, I literally threw the book on the floor. Then I returned it to the library.

[Marybeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing. Great characters. Great story, addressing (and addressing well) issues as diverse as obesity, love, race and what it means to be an artist. Highly recommended.

[Sage · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing style wasn’t my fave and end seemed somewhat rushed. I appreciate the themes discussed and the locale of this book though!

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book written by successful artist Vanessa Garcia, the adult child of Cuban emigre parents. Kirkus reviews says it is "Equal parts elegy and portrait of an artist." I agree. This book was very unique because not only do the chapters begin with colors, Garcia's characters and her thoughts are clearly those of an artist. Protagonist Veronica Gonzalez is reeling from the loss of her father and preparation for a very important one woman show in Miami. It had a lot of dream quality, in the now, but then out there somewhere.

[Susan Rosoff · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh.

[Anita Rios-Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. I could see the places she described even though I had never been there. The emotions were real and relatable, where's the next book?