HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN

The long second act of a New England writer’s life, rich in family, laced with troubles personal and public.

Maynard’s 18th book is a stirring, satisfying sequel to Count the Ways (2021), continuing the story of New England children’s book author Eleanor through the years 2010 to 2024, including the Trump election, Covid-19, the Jan. 6 insurrection, school shootings, and lots and lots of great American music playing in the background. The book’s title comes from a Leonard Cohen song, and John Prine, who died of Covid in 2020, presides over the story. As the author puts it in a note, “I never met him, but in these pages, I honor his musical legacy of humor, wisdom, passion, and tenderness.” As in all Maynard’s best work, those qualities are in evidence throughout. A prologue recaps an event central to the first book—an accident that resulted in a brain injury to Eleanor’s youngest child, in the wake of which Eleanor’s marriage to Cam slowly but surely crumbled. In Part 1, called The Death of Cam, the babysitter he left her for is history, and when Cam falls ill, none of their other children is available to care for him and their brain-damaged brother, so Eleanor moves back from Brookline to the family farm to do the job. Oldest child Al lives on the West Coast and is now fully transitioned, married to a woman, enjoying career success, and hoping to adopt. Middle child Ursula is a mother of three, lives in Vermont, and is married to a high school friend named Jake who morphs into a scary Proud Boy–type in the Trump years. Ursula is deeply estranged from her mother and treats her cruelly; one of the numerous plot threads traces the evolution of this painful situation. Others follow Eleanor’s jet-setting romance with a famous climate change warrior; various projects to commercialize and Hollywood-ize her books; a sexual abuse scandal; and most centrally, this question: “A good mother. Who even knows what that is?” This ample narrative is arranged into tasty vignettes with appealing, sometimes funny subtitles, making it a pleasure to digest.

Everything this great American author’s fans are looking for.