Hodder, 5 September 2024
Available as: HB, 400pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781529396140
Taking place, like many of Swanson's stories written both under this name and as Louise Beech, in Hull, the story is rooted in the everyday but transcends that ordinariness by having external forces impose something weird on the local population - in this case, a power outage every night, intended to save energy. Reminding me somewhat of the power cuts of the 70s, which I lived through, it also evokes the dislocation of the Covid lockdown and some of the social strains and tensions that emerged than and since (while I think not intended, I also saw some resonance with this summer's riots). So, while the main device is invented, it also feels close to recent experience.
At the centre of things is Grace, for whom the loss of light on these dark winter evenings is a huge deal because she has a terror of the dark following some murky events in her childhood (which will gradually be revealed). It doesn't help that a prowler is abroad, assaulting women when the lights are off - and that someone (whether or not the same intruder) begins to enter her house at night leave odd presents and messages. Creepy or what?
So things get very menacing very early on. In other hands, this could go very wrong - where, exactly, do you go next with the story? - but Swanson knows how to wind up the tension still further, and then stiller further, if that makes sense. There's an almost palpable strain - a kind of mental keening - as Grace attempts to balance her day job (and sometimes night - she works shifts at a hospice) with her fear of the dark, to maintain her relationship with an (obviously no-good) husband, a domineering mother and that abiding mystery (an element of which is that her dad went missing when she was a kid). Honestly, at times I had to put the book down and just BREATHE, so tense does it get. But I never left it sitting there for long.
A book with a strong sense of how hurts from the past can fester - a major theme is the need to remember and confront, and to resist the easy solution of forgetting - and of how parents can mess up their kids' lives (they may not mean to but they do) this is also a taut, nailbitting thriller yet has many tender moments. You'll be rooting for Grace, I guarantee. This is Louise Swanson at the top of her game.
For more information about Lights Out, see the publisher's website here.
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