Finally! It’s about time I got a new Featured Read up on this page. I’ve spent countless hours lately writing behind the scenes but not quite so much time reading, which is a shame. I did manage to squeeze some hours in for The Bright Unknown, though, and I’m so glad I did. I was absolutely crushed (in a good way) by this book and highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Yount’s evocative, lyrical novel as soon as you can. In the meantime, read on to whet your appetite:
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Pennsylvania, 1940s. The only life Brighton Friedrich has ever known is the one she has endured within the dreary walls of Riverside Home—the rural asylum where she was born. A nurse, Joann, has educated and raised Brighton, whose mother is a patient at the hospital. But Joann has also kept vital information from Brighton—secrets that if ever revealed would illuminate Brighton’s troubling past and the circumstances that confine her to Riverside. Brighton’s best friend is a boy she calls Angel, and as they grow up together and face the bleak future that awaits them, they determine to make a daring escape.
Nothing can prepare Brighton and Angel for life beyond Riverside’s walls. They have no legal identities, very little money, and only a few leads toward a safe place to land. As they struggle to survive in a world they’ve never seen before, they must rely on each other and the kindness of strangers—some of whom may prove more dangerous than the asylum they’ve fled.
Narrated in Elizabeth Byler Yount’s gorgeous style, The Bright Unknown is a sparkling search for answers, family, and a place to call home.
My Thoughts: I can’t read the title of this book without hearing it two ways, as it’s written, The Bright Unknown, or as I imagine it, The Brighton Known. The story is, after all, Brighton, the main character’s, journey of personal discovery, which spans her early childhood through mature adulthood. We start in young Brighton’s POV when she’s a child, innocent and full of wonder. Her normal world involves growing up in a mental institution, her nurse a makeshift mother and a ward of broken women, akin to doting aunts. Her best friend, Angel, is much like his name: impossibly good and pure, despite the darkness he encounters in the people around him. The characters Younts creates are intensely sympathetic. As a reader, you root for Brighton and Angel almost immediately, as they are simultaneously vulnerable and strong and because they carry in themselves the resilience and bravery to rise above their circumstances.
I also appreciated how Younts masterfully approached story structure in her book. Rather than using two separate characters in her split timeline (the 1940s and present day), she explores the same person– Brighton– in her youth and old age. I loved how young Brighton is on a journey out (out of the asylum, out from a cocoon of a life she has outgrown, out from pain and loss), while old Brighton is on a journey in (in to the now-closed asylum, in to her memories, in to her own mind to deal with the unprocessed emotions she’s locked away for many years). And as in any transcendent story, Younts uses symbolism to lift the book from entertainment to art. Brighton’s camera, which propels the modern-day storyline, serves as an emotional barrier. It provides her with the distance she needs to process her past and her wounds, until she is finally able to display her life in all its variety to the “world” in her town hall presentation. Highly recommend this one if you like thought-provoking reads with real emotional depth.
Readalikes: If you liked The Bright Unknown, you might also like these well-crafted novels: How the Light Gets In by Jolina Petersheim, All Manner of Things by Susie Finkbeiner, and Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes. (All book cover images are from Goodreads.)
Keep reading!
Shaen
