"The Blind Light" is a multi-generational novel that is character driven with very little plot. If that sounds boring to you, then it probably is. I like these 'slower' paced books sometimes- I almost consider this a 'lazy' read- I recommend it as something that can easily be set down and picked back up, mostly because there isn't a lot of action.

The story follows Drummond "Drum" and his friend, Carter, as young soldiers in the late 1950's in Britain that are trained to prepare for post-nuclear war. The two form an unlikely and unequal friendship that affects all of their personal relationships.

At 500+ pages, "The Blind Light" felt like it was dragging at times (lots of repetition). Yet, there were a lot of beautiful moments and a lot of material that would make for a great book club discussion.
Since I am not part of a book club, if you've read this book and read my review, I have a question that I would love to hear people's thoughts on: Do you think the relationship of Drum and Carter is typical of a friendship between someone who is privileged versus someone who isn't?

Thank you Netgalley and W.W. Norton and Company for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. "The Blind Light" was published on October 13th, and is now available (yay!)

Thank you to netgalley.com for an ARC in exchange for a review.

I would actually say that I gave this story three and a half stars. I had a very hard time in the beginning getting into the story. I found the tone of it so sad and depressing and that all the characters were miserable it was hard to connect with them. I felt that this was two families of people who never had any experience of happiness or joy. As the story progressed and the characters got older, I found myself becoming more interested and the book moved faster for me. The overall tone of the story is still sad.

I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys family dramas played out over a few generations.

What am I missing? I found the writing to be disjointed with too many incomplete sentences. I very seldom abandoned a book but I did not like the characters and I could not find anything engaging enough that would make me stay with it. This book left me confused and frustrated.

There was something very compelling about the writing that kept me reading this one. Carter and Drummond met and became friends at 'Doomtown', a training center that simulates the aftermath of an atomic war. Carter is wealthy and privileged; Drummond was working-class. This book follows their inter-related lives through some major global crises - the Cuban missile crisis, bombings by the IRA, ISIS, and more - that could have spawned a nuclear threat. There are also family dramas playing out in the friends' families.

The writing is descriptive and atmospheric. It was so well written it kept me entranced, and even though there is not a lot of action most of the time, the story moved well in my opinion. The family dynamics were the best part for me.

Thanks to W. W. Norton & Company through Netgalley for an advance copy.

I have tried 3 times to get into this book and it's just not for me. The writing is stilted with the lack of complete sentences. The phraseology is not what we are used to here in the US so it leaves me head scratching at times wondering what is meant. It's not interesting to me and I don't care about any of the characters, maybe since I can't relate, but also that there really isn't anything of any importance happening to care about.
Sorry, I stopped reading and won't pick it up again.
Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book sounded so good that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
Drum and Carter form an unlikely friendship at “Doom Town,” a training center that recreates the aftermath of atomic warfare. This experience will haunt them the rest of their lives. Years later, Carter, who is now a high-ranking government official offers factory worker Drum a way to protect himself and his family should a nuclear strike occur.
Carter is manipulative and uses Drum to get what he wants. Drum is passive and lets Carter push him around.
This story spans several generations of these two families. Told from the perspective of Drum and his wife Gwen until much later in the book from their children Nate and Anneka.
I’ll admit, I had a really hard time reading this book. It seemed to be choppy from start to finish. It would bounce around from timelines, who’s talking, and what they are talking about without giving the reader a clue what’s going on. Almost like a puzzle that was taken apart and put back together incorrectly. In the books defense, I was given an ARC copy which may contain a few errors like spelling, typos, punctuation etc. (there were many spelling which didn’t have anything to do with my rating). The whole story was just so disjointed.
The storyline is good, if only it wasn’t disjointed. And the ending was oh so unexpected shocking!
#BlindLight #NetGalley

This book starts in 1959 at a base called “Doomtown”. It is a training area that is set to look like the aftermath of an atomic strike. We watch a very unusual friendship grow- Drummon is working-class, Carter is from a privileged background. With this military training background, and the Cuban Missile Crisis underway, these two become fixated on their survival in a bomb shelter built at the estate of Carter’s home.

This book was all over the place. The author did a great job portraying these men as a bit psycho and their lives huge train wrecks. I kept going back to Goodreads to see what others thought in order to decide if it was worth my time to finish. I made it all the way to 65% and decided it really was not worth my time or brain power. While the topic of nuclear warfare is certainly still pertinent to our day, I just could not care about these characters or the awful decisions they and their family members made. Didn’t see anything redeeming at all. Did not finish.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I had a hard time working my way through this book. The timelines went back and forth and there did not seem to be any likeable characters. Lots of interdependence with the two main characters and I am not really sure why this friendship existed as it did. The time period just did not grab me.

I got a free copy of this book from Net Galley ... for that I give an unbiased review. OK, so I enjoyed the characters and the writing style; there is a lot to be said about a a book that covers the history of two families of wildly different social economic backgrounds through the cold war era of the 60's and 70's through to the modern day. Good writing aside, I was frequently bored with the content .... nothing seemed to happen for pages and pages and then when significant events did occur, they were over much too quickly particularly since they seemed to become disarmingly central to the plot. More than once I had to go back and re-read the triggering event. So .. yes, if did meander for me and for that reason, it missed the mark. If seems I'm the exception though; other readers enjoyed it more -- but I'm happier to stick with Ken Follett or Jeffrey Archer thank you very much

I received a arc from NetGalley of The Blind Light. The premise of the storyline was interesting . I was caught up in the characters of Carter and Drum. Story starts in 1959 and continues to present day. We are also introduced to Carter and Drum's families. Set in Britain Carter and Drum are in special service at Doom Town a town that simulates the aftermath of a bomb. The effects of participating in that exercise follows them and their families through out their life. It was a interesting read and I read about a era that was new to me. I would recommend this book.

A literary tale that spans a dark time when the thought of nuclear destruction seemed close and personal. That fear pervades everything and little by little the characters spin out of control. I was mesmerized by the writing even when the storyline seemed slow. A worthwhile read, even if it’s not a joyful one. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a book that grows on you when you learn more about the characters: mainly two soldiers Drum, a factory worker, and Carter, an Oxford graduate from a wealthy family. While they have different backgrounds, they form a special bond in 1959 that travels with them for the rest of their lives at a place they call "Doom Town," a training center for nuclear weapons. After they return from their assignments, Carter encourages Drum to change his career from a Ford factory worker into a farmer. He makes it possible by providing Drum with a loan so they can live next to each other. Drum has to convince his wife, Gwen, that it's a good place to raise their kids. The book has a span from 1959 into the present time weaving in and out of the lives of Drum and Carter's families.

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. It was easy to dive into this family as an observer of the highs and lows of their relationships but the book is long and at times, I drifted off - anxiously wanting it to end getting bogged down with words. The book is packed with all kinds of emotions with one living through this period of time. Towards the end, I felt like it was summed up when it was perfectly said that we are all born into politics. The characters made me feel like I was in the room with them and the images will stay with me for a long time.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this copy.

This was, at least for me, an interesting but tough read.Epic in its time dimension, extending from the nuclear war fears of the fifties through the Cuban missile crisis, Gorbachev and the Afghanistan war till present time.Told through the life span of two men who meet in the service and their subsequent friendship over the years, interwoven with the lives of their families. I found it a difficult read-hard to follow and with multiple in my mind superfluous digressions. The best part for me was the nuclear war fears and the “ fallout shelters” and the simulated aftereffects of a nuclear explosion-I recall this vividly from my own youth and the nuclear attack “ drills” with all of us cowering under our desks.

Book 187 for 2020 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Happy Publishing Day to The Blind Light!

I read an ARC of this book on my Kindle. Many times these early copies of manuscripts are not yet ready for publication and mistakes can be seen (misspellings, grammatical errors, etc) but they aren’t a big deal and don’t usually detract from the story. With this book, I’m not sure the same can be said.
The story centers on a married couple and their two children, and spans several decades. At times, the entire family is featured, but often it just focuses on one of the characters, and it’s not always sequential.
All of this is fine, and not even uncommon; the problem with the copy I read was that the change in topic often wasn’t separated at all, so that I would read a few confusing paragraphs before realizing that the setting and/or timeframe had completely changed. A few times, this would happen in the same paragraph! It took a while to get familiar enough with the story so that this didn’t keep tripping me up. I really hope the finished manuscript is easier to read.
Aside from that, this was a dense, complicated saga of a family living through an insane period of history and barely making it out intact. It was long, but worth it.
Thanks to #netgalley and #hardcoverbooks for this ARC of #theblindlight #stuartevers

Thank you W W Norton and Stuart Evers for a preview copy of this book.
I was really confused through this book. It was written with a very disjointed timeline. The premise of the book is two English soldiers, Carter and Drum, have a friendship and vow to help each other throughout the rest of their lives. Carter comes from a wealthy family and Drummond (Drum) is the factory worker. They are given the option for a special task force on nuclear weapons which causes an ongoing emphasis in their lives. Carter decides to build a bunker on their property and promises Drum he will always have a place there..
Drum meets Gwen and heads back to factory life while Carter heads to a job with National Security so when the employees strike at the factory, Drum and his family heads to Carter’s. Where they make a plan.
This is a good book on family and friend relationships.
#Netgalley #TheBlindLight

Thanks NetGalley for the chance to read.

This book spanned 60 years and should have been cut down, it would not have affected the story which dragged on too long and didn't flow well.

Overall the writing was very good, although I didin't like the stream of consciousness sections. My biggest problem is that I didn't really like or connect to any of the characters. I liked the way Carter and Drum stayed connected for a while despite class difference but I did not understand the motivation behind their estrangement later on.

I trudged through the novel without any enjoyment.

I almost gave up on this, and am still not sure I shouldn't have. This is a novel about time and trust and the slow building and erosion of that trust. Two men serve together and learn how to use each other, calling it friendship, and this using leads to betrayal. Their wives remain married to the men for protection and for stability--another kind of use. Their children learn to use and not use their parents, each other, friends. Ultimately, this is a dark and cynical novel, slow and often dull, with little to redeem it for the reader.

The Blind light is a very sad book. It's about relationships, love, family, and friendship. It's a long dense book and would be recommended for fans of the goldfinch, or other literary fiction. This book is not an easy read. It is dense and through it talks about heavy situations that are sad and terrifying.

I definitely wouldn't recommend this one to everyone especially during a pandemic that we are in now. But it is an interesting book. I would say it reminded me so much of Donna Tartt's books. Dense, heavy on narration, and emotionally intense. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

The story opens with a brother and sister spying on the neighbors with binoculars. Then it skips forward to the young boy, now a man, waiting for his sister to visit after being estranged for 40 years. The plot sounded interesting. Two men, one rich, one not become friends during their time in the service and then the rich guy, Carter, offers Drum an opportunity to be a farmer in the north rather than working at the Ford Factory, live in a house next to his own which he does.

This book has so many high ratings and then I wonder what am I missing. I didn't like the characters. I thought Carter was a jerk and even though he claimed friendship with Drum he was always aware that he was the one with the power and expected Drum to do what he asked him to. I wondered why Drum was friends with Carter. I think he realized that Carter was not a true friend but still followed along. The writing was short and choppy sentences and would switch to different perspectives with no indication and not heads up on whose eyes we were looking through. Same with times lines, the author jumped around a lot.

So I may not be smart enough to see what was so special about this book, perhaps being the time of Corona it was a little much for me to handle but what I do know is what I like and this fell short.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this.

This is a beautifully-written, ambitious book. While I'm not sure that author Stuart Evers hit all the marks he had set for himself, there's so much to like. Evers' eye for detail and ear for just the right word are unmatched.

The depiction of relationships -- between male friends, spouse, parents and children, and above all between social classes -- is memorable. Evers' nihilistic view seemed to percolate down into the most intimate dealings. Was there a close, loving relationship to be found among the entire lot (Neka's and Rob's, perhaps)?

I missed something, however, in the "theme" of nuclear holocaust, unless it stood as a metaphor for the general dread we all seem to feel about terrorism, pandemics and the hostility of the world at large. In any case, it's a powerful retrospective of the past 60 years.

Thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Co. for an advance readers' copy.