Gazing at the Distant Lights

by Doug Margeson

Were the sixties really a magical time? Many who came of age in the era would argue they were not – although glimpses of magic sometimes showed themselves, tantalizing, like flickering lights on a dark night.It is autumn, 1964 and 18-year-old Tom Brewer is starting his freshman year at Seattle Pacific College, sent there against his will by parents who think “It will do you a world of good.”Brewer finds himself alone and alienated in a conservative evangelical culture he finds bizarre and repressive.The one bright spot is a fellow freshman, Marilyn Pennell, a scion of privilege and status. The first time she sees Brewer, all her smug certainties promptly crumble. Brewer and Marilyn come together. They part. Their enchantment remains; a faint glimmer deep within.Brewer inherits $30,000 from a relative. He finds, as have so many before him, that when you have money, people will try to take it from you, including your own family. Brewer leaves home to an uncertain future. His one hope is the money. Then it comes. Then his real trouble begins.Meanwhile Marilyn returns home on Christmas break to find that her father has gone bankrupt and may be criminally liable for fraud. Her parents can afford one more quarter of school, maybe two. She must endure the grime and humiliation of searching for minimum wage jobs.Gazing at the Distant Lights looks at people caught in a current over which they have little control, hoping for something better, something they cannot quite define.

440 pages, Paperback

Published July 2, 2019

Reviews

[David Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gazing at the Distant Lights is one of those novels that, certain for those alive at that time, will evoke any number of memories and responses. Ostensibly about an academic year at Seattle Pacific College in Seattle in 1964 concerning a cast of characters, the book is really a rather cleared-eyed, and perhaps cynical, look at the America of that time that people have tended to romanticize. There is no particular celebration of free love or hippie life, mainly because SPC was a conservative christian college where such activities were prohibited by the student code of conduct. And while some may be surprised by that, it was far more common on all American college campuses. But in some ways that is the dominant theme of the book, that life, as constituted by society, is driven by codes, strictures and limits, and the sooner you come to realize that, the better off you will be. That's certainly true of the main protagonists, Tom Brewer and Marilyn Pennell, both of whom come to college with wide eyes and expectations that are quickly disabused by the daily grind of life at SPC.
As someone familiar with that time, I found its depictions all too familiar and spot on. And for a lengthy book, it moves along smartly and has a wry sense of humor flowing throughout and well describes Seattle as it once existed.