Catching the Light in some ways echoes Horton’s first novel Between You and Me in that it explores a three-way relationship, this time between Sylvie, her daughter, Alice, and Michael, Sylvie’s lover. Its themes are the coming together and drifting apart of these attachments based on varying degrees of emotional blackmail and entanglements with others.
We first meet Sylvie as an aspiring painter working at an aged care home to support herself and her young daughter, Alice. When she meets Michael, a renowned artist, at a protest rally, they’re immediately attracted to each other and he invites her to visit Isaiah, an artists’ commune he runs in a remote coastal region of Otago. She decides to move there with Alice and pursue the relationship with Michael, disregarding the fact that Alice is violently opposed to the idea.
From there the timeline shifts between this period and a decade into the future when Sylvie is alone again living in Melbourne. When art historian Caroline is selected to write an essay for a retrospective exhibition of Michael’s work, Caroline acts as the catalyst for both Sylvie and Alice to revisit memories of the events at Isaiah and the insidious influence of Michael.
There are some issues I had in relating to Horton’s characters. Michael is so enigmatic that he seems to serve only as a device to ignite interactions of others. Alice too often behaves like a spoiled brat, while Sylvie, despite obsessively worrying about whether she’s a bad mother, is so consumed by her own anxieties that she does neglect Alice’s welfare.
However, having said that, Horton writes well, especially about art and the esoteric world surrounding it.
Reviewed by Anne Green
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joanna Horton is a writer living in Brisbane. She has an MA in anthropology from the University of Chicago, and is currently a doctoral candidate in sociology.
Her work has appeared in Overland, Jacobin, StylusLit, and The Millions.
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