Lydia Fitzpatrick

This is a rough one.

The central character in the story is Ilya, a Russian teenager. Ilya lives with his mother, grandmother, and older brother in a cold, middle-of-nowhere Russian oil refinery town called Berlozhniki. Berlozhniki itself might be the most fully drawn character in the story, and its chief antagonist. It is bleak — it drains its people’s dreams dry, and it clings to them if they try to escape.

Vladimir fantasizes about becoming a rich gangster while his life ebbs away in show more petty crime and drug addiction. But Ilya is smart, even gifted, and he wins a place in a student exchange program, giving him the chance to spend a year in the United States.

Ilya’s opportunity is a dream-come-true, but Berlozhniki could crush it. I won’t go into spoiler details, but Ilya doesn’t just pack his bags and go when his time comes. Berlozhniki, with Valdimir’s help, tries to grab him and hold onto him.

In the United States, Ilya lives with his host family in another refinery town, this one American style. The contrast is inevitable. Ilya’s host family, the Masons, live a comfortable middle class life. They attend a modern, high-style church, they eat dinner together, and they shop at Walmart. It’s all new to Ilya.

Fitzpatrick doesn’t go down the worn-out path of the impoverished foreigner’s wonderment at middle class American life. To be honest I was worried that she might at some points. But it certainly is a premise of the story that Berlozhniki is a place to escape, not a place to live. Leffie, Louisiana, where the Masons live, isn’t paradise, but it’s an escape for someone from Berlozhniki.

Ilya, though, is drawn back to unfinished business in Berlozhniki, in particular, Vladimir. Vladimir has confessed to three murders, all young women, and he almost certainly didn’t do it. It doesn’t matter, though — he’s, for some reason, confessed, and he seems destined for life in a Russian prison.

Ilya searches for the person he suspects — a young American Mormon, Gabe Thompson. Gabe had been on an ill-fated mission to Russia and fell into the pit of Berlozhniki. He is now back somewhere in the United States, and Ilya sets out to find him, to help exonerate Vladimir.

Meanwhile, Ilya has become close with Sadie, the adopted daughter of the Masons. Sadie’s biological mother is herself a drug addict, living in a trailer and surviving on fast food chicken. Sadie is as alienated as allowed in Leffie, in such a conservatively religious home as the Masons’. Ilya seems like just the right kind of outsider she needs for a soulmate. I think Fitzpatrick depicts the attraction between them very naturally — it’s almost as if it’s already a fact when they first meet, just waiting to be acknowledged.

I won’t spoil the ending. But, like I said, this is a rough story. It is full of the bleakness of Berlozhniki, and the despair that Ilya brings with him to America because of his brother, Vladimir. Ilya and Sadie are heroes, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything like a fairy tale ending. What happens is probably what should happen.

I think the strength of the book is the character of Berlozhniki itself. It has a history — it was a camp location on the Gulag, it has a personality — unrelenting bleakness, and it has a hold on Ilya and other characters in the story. Some of the other characters, particularly Sadie, I thought, could have been drawn more deeply. She honestly seems a bit thin — we do know a little about her, but she mostly falls into place in Ilya’s story rather than really having all that much a life of her own.

All in all, it’s tough going at times, not because of flaws in Fitzpatrick’s writing, but just because the story is tough. show less

Lights All Night Long begins with fifteen-year-old Ilya’s arrival in America. He is oddly detached, walking past his host family’s welcoming sign twice before stopping. He pretends he does not understand them and doesn’t speak English leaving them puzzled why he was chosen to participate in this exchange sponsored by the refinery companies in his hometown and theirs. The next morning, he apologizes and explains that he is struggling because his brother recently died.

This is not true. show more In fact, his brother has just confessed to murdering three women and is awaiting trial and sentencing in prison. It seems so appropriate that Ilya’s hometown was once part of the Gulag. The story goes back and forth from the past in Russia and the present in Louisiana. One thing unites both cities, the refineries and their bright lights that illuminate the sky all through the night, the lights all night long.

In the past, we see how close and how different the brothers are. Vladimir is older and protective of Ilya. Ilya is studious and bright, Vladimir struggles with school, reading with difficulty. Vladimir skips school, takes drugs, and runs away from home, squatting in an empty building. Ilya is recommended for an exchange program while everyone has given up, more or less, on Vladimir.

Except Ilya, who is determined to prove his brother’s innocence even from Louisiana. He enlists his exchange family “sister” Sadie in his research, hoping to find an American missionary who suddenly returned to America, perhaps a witness, perhaps the killer. Sadie has secrets of her own and the two are drawn together by their shared difficulties

Lights All Night Long is brilliant on many levels. It works as a coming-of-age story as Ilya learns more about the brother he loves so much and as he explores his first real love. It works, too, as a story of someone new to America, the initial discomfort and confusion of a new country but it avoids making that into a joke. It also works as a mystery, the slow, almost tortuous work of looking for a rather common needle in the American haystack.

Perhaps what I liked best about the story is how well-developed even the minor characters were. Take the host parents Cam and Jamie. They are on the surface pretty stereotypical Southerners, full of boosterism and religious devotion. Their lives center on their church. Yet, when push comes to shove for Ilya and for Sadie, we see so much strength and flexibility. Jamie, in particular, comes through as an amazing woman. So, too, Ilya’s family and his teacher. There are no flat characters. They inhabit the story so fully I can imagine them living lives outside this story.

This is a story overflowing with love, not just Ilya’s for his brother, but his mother and grandmother’s love. Ilya and Sadie and how thye come to love each other through their fears and secrets. Cam and Jamie’s love and how it grows and forgives. Even the love the communities have for their people. This is a story of people with good hearts who struggle with demons as best they can. I really loved it.

I received an e-galley of Lights All Night Long from the publisher through NetGalley.

★★★★★

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Lydia Fitzpatrick’s “Lights All Night Long” is a rippling top of the heap 2019 novel. This mystery breaks all the rules by refusing to acknowledge any clichés, red herrings, or mechanical plot devices. The story revolves around Russian exchange student Ilya and his journey to America shortly after his brother Vladimir confesses to murdering young Russian girls. There are simultaneous love stories between Ilya and his brother and Sadie, daughter of the American family Ilya is staying show more with. The novel takes brotherly love into the stratosphere. Lydia effortlessly moves the plot between Russia and America. A brilliant debut filled with writing you want to wrap your soul around. Be prepared to cocoon yourself while reading the book. A fantastic experience. show less

Lights All Night Long by Lydia Fitzpatrick is a highly recommended heartbreaking coming-of-age novel.

This is the story of two Russian brothers, Ilya and Vladimir, who take different paths. The novel opens with fifteen-year-old exchange student Ilya arriving in Effie, Louisiana, from Berlozhniki, a small village in Russia on the edge of the Arctic Circle. This should be an exciting time, a dream come true, but as he left Russia, he left his older brother Vladimir behind - and Vladimir has show more just been thrown into jail and charged with the murder of three young girls. Ilya knows Vladimir is innocent, but how can he prove it while living in America?

The story alternates between the Ilya's past in Russia, leading up to the present day, and his time in America, where he finds an ally and help from his host family's daughter, Sadie. The two brothers were always close, but Ilya has always been the studious one, excelling in learning English. As Ilya studied and prepared for the exam that would allow him to be an exchange student in America, Vladimir descended further into drinking and the local drug culture. Now Ilya and Sadie find a way to help Vladimir from afar.

The alternating chapters serve to contrast the poverty in Russia and the abundance in America, but also served to show, as Ilya learns more, some of the similarities in both countries and cultures. The novel does start out slow and it takes time to get a better feel for Ilya and establish some sense of connection to the characters. The connection with Ilya does improve as the novel progresses and his character becomes better developed, but the slow start to the narrative does serve to impede any immediate connection. Sadie, the oldest daughter of the host family, is developed as a character, but the rest of the family are never really developed beyond caricatures. Mostly, this is a tale of two brothers, their bond, and the very different lives the two live.

This is a well-written, compassionate, compelling account of Ilya's life and family and an impressive debut novel. The mystery, solving the murders, does reach a satisfying conclusion which is aptly tied into the plot. The focus is really on the relationship between the brothers and the lengths you will go to help those you love.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
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