The Lights: A Novel

by Brian McGreevy

Overview

"I was taken most seriously when listening to men listen to themselves.”

When Leda Galvan, a gifted writer who can also occasionally be given to self-destruction, gets in to the school of her dreams and sets out to make a new life in Austin, she soon discovers that the heaviest baggage cannot always be left behind.

Funny, smart, and self-aware, The Lights is also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of how we connect in our most intimate bonds, sure to please fans of both Emma Straub and Eric Rohmer. As Leda and the men in her orbit grapple with sex, betrayal, honesty, and each other, their own closely-held ideas of who they are in matters of love and art give way to transformative decisions and the revelation of what comes next.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781945572128
Publisher:	Rare Bird Books
Publication date:	05/09/2017
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Brian McGreevy is an author and screenwriter whose debut novel, Hemlock Grove, was adapted into the Netflix series of the same name. He is cocreator of the AMC series, The Son. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Texas, where he was a James Michener Fellow. The Lights is his second novel.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Brian McGreevy is alarmingly talented at embodying the mind of every beautifully broken millennial who has found—and squandered—love. Painfully real and weirdly elating.

—Maureen O'Connor, New York Magazine's "Sex Lives" Columnist

“With The Lights, Brian McGreevy has perfectly captured the minutia and absurdity of life in academia. Set within the confines of a prestigious writing program in Texas, McGreevy captures how young artists can behave like caged animals within a tight system of order. His characters spit childish banter disguised as high-register discourse designed to assert their dominance over their classmates, yet it soon becomes an all-too-relatable flirtatious, sexual language. Above all, The Lights is a funny and honest look at how we negotiate our own morality on a sliding scale.”

—Kristen Radtke, author of Imagine Wanting Only This

"In the pressurized, airlocked intensity of this post-graduate romance, falling in love is hard. Making it work is harder. And when two blisteringly ambitious, profanely intellectual lovers collide, as they do in this scabrous, romantic novel, lasting love may be impossible. But it's sure to be a hell of a wild ride, and this novel is a hell of a wild read."

—Logan Hill, Cosmopolitan's "Ask Logan"

"I love how The Lights begins in the familiar territory of an MFA program, but the narrator's meditations immediately stretch far beyond it. This is a novel about temptation, validation, and all the different routes (and detours) one might take on her way to becoming an artist. It was utterly absorbing and fascinating to see where Brian McGreevy took this story."

—Chelsea Hodson, author of Pity the Animal

"'I am from Pittsburgh. We have a way of doing things,' says Leda, the narrator of Brian McGreevy’s novel. Through a hipster Austin MFA program, a love affair with a fellow writer, and the journey into her steel-gray past, I rooted for this Pennsylvania girl."

—Maureen Gibbon, author of Paris Red