The new novel by Lisa Harding – Bright Burning Things – is an uncomfortable and precise depiction of a young mother battling alcohol addiction. Out today through Bloomsbury, it is a momentous and powerful novel that will stay with you.
The novel is available for purchase here.
Bright Burning Things tells the story of Sonya, a young mother, and her interactions both with her young son, her father and her ‘councillor’ David. It is a quietly powerful novel that is raw in its depiction of addiction and motherhood, charting the spiralling alcoholism of Sonya, before she agrees to go to rehab, her eventual release and attempts to repair her relationship with her son. Sonya is a frustrating protagonist, but there is something about her that is engagingly raw and real, as she battles with the depths of suppressed grief at the loss of her mother. You are invited to judge her, but end up understanding and sympathising with her, particularly in her frustrating relationships with her father and stepmother.
The novel is more than anything founded on deep maternal love that ultimately acts as Sonya’s weapon and shield in beating addiction. Bright Burning Things offers a window and an understanding into addiction in a more raw and real way that has been seen in modern literature – a world-class novel. It is an affecting novel that accurately depicts the destructive power of addiction, and the redemptive power of faith – whether in religion or self – and love, a heart-wrenching novel that will stay with you in its ability to break your heart and then put it back together again. Harding is a masterful novelist who weaves an incredibly propulsive that is simultaneously quiet, whispering to the truths in Sonya’s psyche and in ourselves.
The novel is available for purchase here.
