LIGHTS ALL NIGHT LONG
By Lydia Fitzpatrick
“T’was a junkie girl in my world
And everything began to twirl
And it spun so that I couldn’t even stand
She had many charms, I heard alarms
She stuck needles in my arm
And I guess that’s when the trouble began
Days and nights, city lights
Empty bags and broken pipes
Slowly things got completely out of hand
Oh my god how far
Did we fall to get to where we are
In the dark, it’s not always easy to see the light
Was it just because
It was love on drugs
I don’t know how we made it out alive” – Lyrics excerpt from “Butterfly” by Michael McDermott
This is a story unlike any other I have read. It started slowly for me; I felt no connection with any character until at least half of the way through, and then I began to relate to the beauty of the imagery that the author so skillfully designed. Her words are gorgeous, and I found myself highlighting beautiful passages that hit with stunning force, and the mesmerizing story she tells unfolded for me.
Ilya and his older brother Vladimir live in Berlozhniki, Russia. Ilya, the younger, looks up to his big brother with love and awe, and would do almost anything for him. Vladimir loves his younger brother, as well, but doesn’t have the interest in studies or the aptitude for learning that Ilya has. He is wilder, lives on the edge, and his choices are terrible and terrifying.
When Ilya has the chance to travel to America for a year as an exchange student, Vladimir becomes even more reckless than usual and his poor choices lead to a horrifying addiction, which in turn leads to his arrest for murder. Ilya, convinced of his brother’s innocence and now living with his host family in a small town in Louisiana in the US, does what he can from afar to dig into the truth of what really happened.
The outcome of this story is breathtaking, heartbreaking and extraordinary. I was absorbed in the author’s lovely images, even as I consistently had to look up the English translation for so many Russian words that were sprinkled throughout. This book started as a 3 star for me because it took a while to grip me; I felt removed from the characters and the storyline, but what a testament to the author’s writing skills that I never wanted to quit and that she pulled me in so completely.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Reviewed May 2019
House of Black and Blue 