A review by loganlangston
Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet

2.0

In Ghost Lights, Lydia Millet has maintained her quick and confident writing style. This novel has all the same dry leeching humor and long build up as How the Dead Dream. Thankfully, this novel departs from HTDD with more subtlety, It contains none of self-indulgent ecologic rants from a disembodied narrator. However, Ghost Lights lacks any of the surprise that HTDD held, I missed all of the intriguing plot points that come to a crescendo. In this novel all of the subplots feel superfluous. Perhaps because of this disinterest in the general plot lines I became much more critical of the message of the novel. The humor of a cold feelingless T. in the previous novel did not translate well on Hal. He is distant, he admits, long dead before the start of the novel. Yet his realizations aren't profound and he doesn't really seem to learn anything by the end of the book. It all just feels a bit absurd. Perhaps I should just allow myself to enjoy the absurdity. I love the parallels of the two books and I am willing and somewhat excited to see how the third in the trilogy plays out. I hope she moves past the "benevolent savage", disparaging view on disabled peoples lives, and the blindingly random gay characters. I just hope it's all leading up to something more than this non-intersectional white liberal ecological message.