Review: Child of Light

The Importance of Breaking Form Conventions
Review: Child of Light

Cecilia Combs

Jesi Bender
Fiction
WHISK(e)Y TIT pp. 3340 
Cost: $18.00

Jesi Bender’s Child of Light is a masterclass in narrative in-betweens. Bender writes beautiful, evocative prose and descriptions that are both startling and disturbing. The story is both narratively complex with several throughlines, and deceptively simple. The novel follows Ambrétte Memenon, a thirteen-year-old young woman moving with her family to Utica, New York in 1886. Ambrétte herself is imprisoned in a twilight land of “in-betweens.” For instance, her father only speaks French, her mother and brother are bilingual, and she only speaks in English. The book uses the main character’s feelings of being trapped between two words to launch into experimentations with structure, perspective, and language. The form of the book is both a testament to what novels can accomplish and breaks all conventions with a reckless abandon

In the story, Ambrétte’s family is divided between secularists and spiritualists, and this divide blossoms to encompass logic and faith, progress and the past, and light and death. This creates another straddling of “in-betweens” for both Ambrétte and the reader as they navigate these dual perspectives. The book also adds to the importance of this debate by connecting it to the treatment of women at the time. Through Ambrétte’s mother’s character, it is implied that women are more likely to believe in spiritualism because it promises them another world of sorts, as well as an escape. This interpretation of the concept has a fascinating pay-off in the end of the book, and it does interestingly negate the trope of the disconnected and frivolous spiritualist. I do also appreciate that the “seances” in the book are different from the archetypal ones in most fiction, involving elements that actually do succeed in making it feel otherworldly and strange instead of trite. 

The novel is able not only to discuss the themes of spiritualism and secularism within the prose and characters’ dialogue, but to utilize form to bring the reader into these conversations. The text breaks genre conventions often to disorient and also to fascinate the reader, similar to the emotions Ambrétte feels while researching the occult. The breaks in convention also dabble in the lack of understanding of her French heritage and language. In this way, it further emphasizes her isolation and lack of reliable education. This, in turn, emphasizes the mistreatment and lack of proper education for women. 

One example that summarizes all of these things can be found on page 19, which has two columns side by side: one is a short story in French, and the other is that same short story told phonetically. The short story, upon translation, is about women characters feeling intellectually trapped and forced to violence. However, without an understanding of French, like the narrator’s lack of understanding, this information is lost to the reader. The columns both devolve then to only be music notes. All of this helps the reader to feel the confusion and loss Ambrétte feels, as she is listening to her mother’s mournful piano playing. Just as Ambrétte does not understand that her mother behaves the way she does because she feels trapped and isolated, neither does the reader. This implication of violence and familial abuse puts a seed of anxiety in the French-speaking readers' mind that Ambrétte does not have, leaving the reader more aware of her vulnerability and giving them a sense of dread. When one can’t read the story, they may be as shocked as Ambrétte later in the text.

The breaks in conventional storytelling are also represented as an escapism or conduit for the female characters’ feelings. Often, though not exclusively, the breaks in form are there to make way for a woman to express herself—whether through the songs sung by the mother or short stories told by Ambrétte, Celeste, or Lizzy. When the female characters often give advice or a solution to their pain, the story breaks from the conventional prose form to make space for their diegetic information. This is not to say that male characters’ thoughts or worlds are not present in the form breaks, but it is more common for the women characters. Additionally, the tone of the text aligns with the female characters' experiences. The novel’s tone is often so grim that reading it makes you feel physically heavy. The word choice for certain scenes can be viscerally disgusting. This tone helps to emphasize the women characters who suffer due to societal systems, the choices of their male counterparts, and sexism, racism, and classism. Spiritualism is situated as a balm to this treatment by offering an escapist fantasy of life. The breaks in convention pattern further enforces the theme of spiritualism or fantasy as a tool for escapism by distancing it from traditional and linear narrative.

Another example of Bender’s informed use of form can be found on page 181. This page also utilizes the two columns and the French language to mystify and hide information. Knowledge of French reveals one character may in fact be hungover, but without it, the character’s reflections are unreadable similar to how the character’s mental state is unknowable to Ambrétte. The other side, in English, is more readable, which mirrors how Ambrétte is beginning to understand her mother and her struggles. As Ambrétte grows from a child into a woman, she can understand and relate more to her mother as she is also trapped and failed by society. Additionally, her French improves, indicated by the partial translations added in tandem to the French within the book. The partial translation helps to include the French, but allows the audience to feel discombobulated even as Ambrétte grows. This helps the audience to be narratively very close to Ambrétte, but not privy to all the information that the characters and setting have. This propels the ideas of the danger of the lack of education because by the end of the book, the behavior of the characters ends up totally unmoored from reality. The intentional distancing of readers from the characters’ actions through a language barrier adds to the bafflement and horror felt at the end of the book. 

All of these techniques to draw the reader into the confusion and unknowable nature of the character’s situation heighten the tone and themes of the piece. Pairing this with spiritualism, a cultural movement based in confusion and misdirection, is well done. Additionally, the later discussions of mental health and the institutionalization of women who don’t conform also blend with the non-linear storytelling. Crucial plot information, character details, and other information is not always told linearly. Often, it’s broken into pieces, told in flashbacks, or told in short stories or French excerpts. This results in a generally satisfying weaving of the present and past within the book, which led to some truly fantastic pay-offs. Some readers, however, may find it confusing. Elements of the text that might have been able to just be stated can feel muddled. In other words, a lot of the elements that make the story interesting, also make it challenging to read. Readers who enjoy puzzles and piecing together parts of a text will enjoy this novel!  

Child of Light allows the readers to experience reality in a new way, the way the main character does. This is not always a pleasant experience, but it is always enlightening. This allows the readers to exist temporarily in 1886 New York to marvel at the splendors and horrors of the day. It also means that the audience, like the main character, is able to traverse two complex themes. They are able to live in a mystifying, horrifying, grief-filled place where certain people are denied care, rights, or education. Then they can enjoy a world that is not only beautiful, but also full of mystery, light, music, and opportunities for self discovery and growth. Bender’s choices allow the reader to feel the extremes of both those themes, and to reflect on the two competing ideas. When her audience remembers they are living in this world, a place of contradictions, they will have new tools and ideas to help them navigate it.