Skylight Confessions

by: Alice Hoffman

Published by: Little, Brown and Company

Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce

(Audio also reviewed)

When the story starts, seventeen-year-old Arlyn Singer's father has just died, and she is left alone in their house. She stands on her porch, waiting for the next man to come down the street. He will, she believes, be her destiny, her true love. So she stands, and she waits.

Eventually, he comes driving toward her house, and, inconsistent with his nature, John Moody is lost, late, and stopping to ask for directions. It's a wrong turn that will change his life, and the lives of many others, for many years to come.

He steps out of his car, and their lives are forever changed, for better or worse.

When Arlyn dies of cancer, leaving behind her beloved six-year-old son, Sam, and an infant daughter by another man, John is left to raise them both, haunted forever by the wife he lost.

Sam and Blanca are motherless, left to take care of each other. Sam is a troubled, brilliant youth whose search for something more will surely destroy him, no matter how much Meredith Weiss tries to save him. Blanca is a quiet, serious child who loves her brother and seeks peace in her books. Arlyn was in and out of this world in twenty-five years, but what she left behind will last much, much longer than that. The legacy includes her grandson, Will, who will never know the beautiful, unusual woman that his grandmother was.

Was John really Arlyn's fate? She thought many times that it wasn't so--but the years they spent together created a family, and that love will haunt them all.

SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS is a beautifully written, haunting novel. Bestselling author Alice Hoffman's brilliance shines through clearly in this breathtaking story about a family whose past and present will always be full of love, loss, and tragedy. Love is not, here, a wonderful, happy thing, but a painful one--a picture that some would find far more real than that usually seen in books and movies. Every one of the very real characters is touched by one fleeting love.

This family's journey is moving and emotional, from the first page to the last. This is a book that is impossible to put down--unless it's impossible to keep reading through this tragic, lovely, and powerful story because of the sadness and inevitable destruction that is present throughout.

Armchair Interviews says: Powerful story, well-written as usual, by Alice Hoffman.

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