The Lamplighters

A locked room mystery on a lighthouse? Can it get any better? Well, no, it seems not. The Lamplighters is a wonderful read, one that in turns gripped and saddened me.

This is the story of three lighthouse keepers of different ranks. Collectively they look after the Maiden Rock lighthouse off the coast of Cornwall. This is no pretty mainland building though. This is a tower in the middle of the sea, surrounded by roiling water and with only a distant sight of land. Once in the lighthouse they can go nowhere for two months at a time. The set up and dynamics between the three men was something I found absolutely fascinating. For these men it was simply a way of life.

Until they went missing all of a sudden in 1972. No explanations, no show more obvious clues, nothing to put the minds of the women they left behind at rest. The author very cleverly weaves their disappearance into another narrative, twenty years later, when a writer gets in touch with the women. He's writing a book and wants their memories and theories as to what happened to their men. Through the 1992 story and through the interviews we get to see what it was like for them before and after the disappearance.

Emma Stonex has based her book around real events but made it her own. She's written something literary yet accessible, and I loved how the story unfolded organically as I was thrust between the weeks leading up to the bizarre events of 1972 and the details that were coming to light in 1992. I was totally caught up in the mystery of it all.

The author portrays so well the differing kinds of grief felt by the women, from acceptance to never waning hopefulness, and once or twice I felt a lump in my throat. It's just so exquisitely written, so involving and so very intriguing.

This is a book that is incredibly atmospheric. There's the obvious sense of foreboding, the tower rising from the sea and the slight menace of the water, but there's also the portrayal of the women on the land, looking out at the tower in the distance, sometimes wishing their husbands were home but taking time to adjust when they were. It's an intensely gripping and brooding read, well-researched and expertly plotted. It's a triumph. show less

This book is based on the real life disappearance of three men who vanished from a lighthouse without a trace in 1900. This story is a totally fictional account set in 1972 and 1992, three men vanish and three women left behind.

I enjoyed this book more than what I thought I would. The setting of a lighthouse gives that locked room mystery to the story, what happened and why the men disappear.

The story is not fast paced and goes back to and fro and follows the men and their wives/partners. The story is certainly interesting and there is enough in the story that made me want to find out what happened.

The story for me was more about the characters and their state of minds. Each character was very different and I didn't see what was coming show more at the end.

I quite enjoyed this book and it isn't one I would have picked up from the cover. Interesting tale and would have been nice to know what did really happen to the real men who the story is based on. A little googling now I think. show less

I remember enjoying Peter Hill’s book Stargazing about the life of a lighthouse keeper a few years ago and was intrigued by the premise of Emma Stonex’s well reviewed debut novel (under her own name, anyway) The Lamplighters (Picador). Based on a true story, three keepers are due to be relieved from a tower lighthouse after their stint there but when the boat turns up to collect them there is no sign of anyone, and the thick iron door into the lighthouse is locked from the inside. Twenty years later a young novelist arrives to write about the mystery and starts asking questions in the little coastal village where the wives of two of the three missing keepers still live. It’s clever, tangled, atmospheric and covers the mindset show more required to bide out the time out on the rock in a similar way as one would imagine a submarine mission but with the added claustrophobia of only two others for company. It slowly weaves the story of those left behind and what it must be like for families of those on oil rigs or any on/off shifts. And it brings it all together to shed light on what may have happened in that needle on the horizon a generation ago. If you love the sea, this one’s for you. show less

‘’Today it’s soundless. Jory knows loud seas and silent seas, heavy seas and mirror seas, seas where your boat feels like the last blink of humankind on a roll so determined and angry that you believe in what you don’t believe in, such as the sea being that halfway thing between heaven and hell or whatever lies up there and whatever lurks down deep. A fisherman told him once about the sea having two faces.’’

Cornwall, 1972. The three keepers of a formidable lighthouse vanish without a trace. The doors are locked. The table has been laid for dinner. The clocks have stopped at the same time. But Andrew, Bill and Vince are gone. 1992. A writer decides to write a book about the strange incident and conducts Helen, Jenny and show more Michelle, the women who were left behind. Their voices merge with the thoughts of the keepers and the truth - if there is an actual truth - is hidden behind the thick mist.

‘’The saying goes she makes a sound when the weather hits hard, like a woman crying, where the wind gets in between the rocks.’’

Inspired by the actual incident that took place in 1900 in the Outer Hebrides, Emma Stonex creates a novel of superb atmosphere and tension. The reader has to discern the validity of multiple accounts, each narrator has a piece of the puzzle and brick upon brick of contradictory opinion. The story is built upon the powerful themes of loneliness, monotony, isolation. Eerie scenes and memories of the past compose a tale where nothing is what it seems. A storm may or may not have happened. A man is in love with someone else’s wife and someone has committed a crime. The women have drifted apart, each one suspecting foul play against a husband. Whispers of hauntings and voices through the mists excite everyone’s imagination. The quiet humming of Scarborough Fair accompanies a mother’s grief…

In terms of atmosphere, this novel is top-notch. Perfect. But apart from Helen, Andrew and Bill, the characters felt problematic and I couldn’t bring myself to ‘’listen’’ to their call. I couldn’t stand Jenny and I wasn’t particularly interested in Pearl, Vince and Michelle’s chapters, hence the 4 stars. In my opinion, the characterization fell flat, as if it was sacrificed on the altar of mystery and eeriness.

This is a heavily-hyped novel and I agree 100%. Had the characters been more appealing (in my opinion), this would have been one of my reading highlights of the year.

‘’The moon pale - eyes through the window. Weird moon. Weird thoughts. Moons out here so bright it hurts. Against everything else they’re brighter than they should be. Imagining the moon is the sun and the whole world turned inside out.’’

Many thanks to Pan MacMillan and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

‘The Lamplighters’ by Emma Stonex is a difficult story both to describe and to compartmentalise in genre. I, mistaken by the Author’s Note at the beginning which refers to a true incident in 1900, thought I would be reading a historical story. The action is set in 1972 and 1992. The genre is variously described as horror, ghost, thriller, suspense and mystery. I saw no evidence of ghosts and it doesn’t feel to me like a thriller. It is a story of human emotions and the consequences of actions, set against the atmospheric backdrop of the sea.
Cornwall, 1972. The Maiden Rock, a lighthouse on a rock tower out at sea, is the scene of a mysterious disappearance. When the relief boat arrives, all three men who should have been on the show more rock have gone. Are they dead, kidnapped, drowned, or disappeared to start a new life? The story of principal keeper Arthur Black, assistant keeper Bill Walker, and supernumerary assistant keeper Vince Bourne is told in two timelines – the men’s stories in 1972 and that of their wives 20 years later when they answer the questions of a journalist researching a book about the disappearances. But why now? And what secrets does he think these women have hidden all these years?
Stonex writes beautifully about the sea, the rugged beauty, the loneliness it conjures in the minds of men alone, within sight of their loved ones on shore but a million miles from their touch. The men’s lives are driven by the sun and the moon, the regimen of keeping their light going. Arthur loves early morning the best; ‘The time I think of you the most is when the sun comes up. The moment before, the minute or two, when night yawns for morning and the sea starts to separate from the sky. Day after day the sun comes back. I don’t know why. I’ve had my light safe here, shining through the dark and I’ll keep it shining: the sun needn’t bother today. But still he comes and still come my thoughts of you.’
The three men are loners, they have to be to survive the rigours of their job and living conditions. Being a lighthouse keeper attracts a certain personality. Each man has his own way of coping with the empty time; Bill carves seashells, they all smoke constantly. They talk politics, the space race, the Cold War. Each man has his loves, regrets, secrets, guilts and griefs. Are these on-shore things irrelevant to life at the Maiden, or do real life events invade their isolated world-within-a-world? Each man dwells in his own mind and as the weather worsens, the mind begins to play tricks.
This is more a story about the three men on the Maiden and less a closed-room thriller, less a what-happened-here mystery. And I was drawn more to the characters of the three men – their life on the Maiden, the effect of their isolation surrounded by the might of the sea and weather – than on the three women ashore and the answer to the mystery.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ show less

This is an intriguing book. Taking inspiration from the famous case where 3 lighthouse men vanished off a light in the last 1900s, this is the same idea, set in 1972, with an author trying to find out what happened 20 years later. Arthur, Bill & Vince are the lighthouse men who go missing, Helen, Jenny & Michelle their partners. Told in two timeframes, the men in 1972, the women in 1992, each person has some internal turmoil. What that is is not always clear and new information is revealed each time. However it did get a little repetitive, the way each person hinted each time. An example of a book in which everyone would have been better off for an honest conversation with the ones they love (or at least live with).
There were a few show more things that didn't quite work for me. The author is curiously absent, the chapters where he is interviewing the women are written as if you only hear the women's side of the conversation. It is almost a stream on consciousness. The way the author is missing from the narrative is clearly a decision, and his connection is revealed in the final chapter. It felt like a strange device to use, to absent the catalyst.
I'm also not convinced that in presenting an answer to the mystery that the author necessarily does the right thing. the final 50 pages felt, to me, to be the weakest. I wasn't entirely convinced by the sequence of events she presented. I also can't help wonder what happened to Sid, or did 3 people each hallucinate him into being at once? This might have been an instance where it would have been better not to provide an answer, but to leave each person to decide themselves. show less

Inspired by an incident that took place in December 1900, when three lighthouse keepers, James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald McArthur, disappeared from a rock light on Eilean Mòr in the Outer Hebrides. This story is set on Maiden Rock, a tower lighthouse off the Cornish coast and is a multiple first person narrative. The missing men’s stories are set in 1972 and their partner’s stories are told to a writer in 1992.

It is a sad story about a lack of communication in relationships, about loneliness and loss, about being trapped. These men have a very different life on the lighthouse, living in very close proximity with each other, whilst their families, who can see the lighthouse, are left to cope alone.

Each narrative voice show more suggests a possible explanation as to what may have happened and what part the protagonist had to play in it. I found the men's stories the most compelling and also the most atmospheric. Emma Stonex manages to capture the atmosphere, isolation and tedium of lighthouse life, how the ocean changes and affects the men, how it can affect the mind and sight.

The women’s stories are filled with pain, hurt and betrayal. Rather than become united in their shared grief, they have been estranged because they couldn’t express themselves to each other and communicate about their feelings or what could have happened. It takes a writer asking them questions, whose voice we don’t really hear until the very end, to get the women to talk about what happened and release their burdens of guilt and loss.

I really liked the story and the various explanations offered to the reader. The men’s stories were much more compelling than the women’s, who I found bitter and not very nice. I understand that they had been let down by Trident, the lighthouse employer, who apart from monetary compensation have not offered them any assistance at all. Without being able to share their burdens with each other, they have become lonely and sad, unable to move forward.

Parts were a little over played for me. Sid’s appearance I felt added nothing to the story, and was a rather clumsy way of exposing Vince’s back story, it just seemed superfluous, almost like ticking the ghostly box on a check list. I didn’t find the story particularly haunting, although being in a lighthouse must feel like that at times with the wind and sea changing all the time. Also the suspense was a little over worked, with what felt like continuous hints of secrets, so when they are revealed it is rather anti-climactic.

The story felt stronger at the beginning and as the timeline ebbs and flows between 1972 and 1992, the effect is to mix all the stories up, which I thought was brilliant, like being in a churning sea. It enhanced the growing feeling of tension and foreboding.

Having not long ago enjoyed Hazel Gaynor’s The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, it was interesting to read another story, inspired by a real incident based on a lighthouse. Both create a very atmospheric dialogue, but in very different ways. show less