Freed from ugly wires and nighttime glare, many of the unlit blocks are strikingly beautiful. Elsewhere, old trees are cropped into scraggly U’s to accommodate the wires; here they grow freely, forming green arches over the dark streets.
These blocks offer an urban refuge, and something else: a natural experiment.
You probably already know what I’m referring to. The pose features a groom standing directly behind his bride-to-be, with his arms wrapped around her abdomen in an anaconda vise. His head typically hovers over her shoulder, a position that sometimes forces him to buckle into a hunching squat (or, worse, stand on the balls of his feet) to remain in the center of the frame. The bride, meanwhile, has only one job. She stares directly into the camera, fear shining in her eyes, as she realizes that the best day of her life is set to be immortalized in this unnatural form.
This Richard Osman business is unfair. Not – as some think – because he got his books published via his fame as a TV presenter. No, the unfairness is that he is good at the day job, but is also a really good crime writer. What are the odds?
So what is this novel really about? Certainly it explores, with insight and empathy, the mind of an intelligent psychopath. But it also is an opportunity to put before the reader a delightful smorgasbord of ideas, stories, opinions and anecdotes. These are so well told and so interesting that it is easy to forget how dangerous a psychopath can be.
Beam of Light is the perfect title for this collection of very short stories. While it is also the title of the first story in this book, it is an appropriate label for all the tales. Appropriate because John Kinsella illuminates fascinating aspects of the lives of people who, in one way or another, have not fulfilled their potential or who long for the unobtainable or the unlikely, or who find themselves in unwanted situations.
The topic of loss and extinction has been covered extensively in recent years, but Streever has approached it freshly, with optimism as well as realism, and with his own brand of personal story and humor. His curious and enthusiastic dives into the biology and history of sea turtles, along with his direct experience along Mexican shores, will carry readers into the same engagement.