The Lantern Keepers

Slow for forty pages, then it grabbed my collar and didn't let go. I read the last third in one sitting on a delayed flight, which is the highest praise I have.

I'm not a literary-fiction person. I want to know what happens. Ostrowski makes you wait, and I nearly bailed twice in the first chapter — the lighthouse, the fog, the sister who won't say what she means. Then the brother comes back and the book turns into something with a pulse. Every chapter after that ends on a question I wanted answered.

Half a star off for the opening. If you're like me, push to page 50. If you're like June, you'll probably love the part I skimmed.

Every sentence is lovely and none of them are necessary. I underlined eleven of them in the first chapter and by the end I had stopped underlining, which for me is the review.

The problem isn't pace — I'll happily read a book where nothing happens. The problem is that when things do start happening, the prose doesn't change. The brother's return is written in the same hushed register as the fog. Nothing is allowed to be loud. A book that only whispers is eventually just quiet.

Two stars, and I understand completely why Dev gave it more. He's reading for the second half. I was reading for the first, and it promised a different book.

Worth it for the middle section alone. Skip it if you need a plot.

Pages 90 to 210 are about the mechanics of keeping a lighthouse in 1911 — the oil, the shifts, the logbooks — and they're the best thing in the book. Ostrowski clearly did the reading and, unusually, knew what to leave out. As a piece of history dressed as a novel, it earns its length. As a novel, it's about 80 pages too long on either side.

Recommend if you like books about how things work. Don't if you're waiting for the brother.