Shadow is a Colour (as light is), an ambitious novel even for a seasoned writer, is particularly ambitious as a debut novel. I started out not liking it and, after several false starts and stops, nearly put it aside as a did not finish. For some reason, I persisted and at about 60%, I ended up being glad I did as all the various story lines seemed to come together.
The art of Cézanne, the French Post-Impressionist artist, bind the book together. In addition to Cézanne, his wife, Hortense Fiquet, and his best friend, Émile Zola, characters include: a Chinese billionaire who invents a machine to replicate painting that are indistinguishable from the originals, his dead wife, his dead son (one of twins), his personal physician, his personal assistant, and the surviving twin who at the age of fifteen determines never to leave his apartment; a movie director, his assistant, the financier of the movie, the star who plays Cézanne; a poet and his ex-wife; Nick and his girlfriend (the future assistant to the movie director) in Liverpool; and other miscellaneous characters. Essentially all the characters are flawed, often fatally. They compete for space, and their stories don’t interrelate well until about the aforementioned 60% mark. Keeping track of the various characters, time shifts, and scenes in the movie and the personnel involved is at times difficult.
Cézanne’s art and life provide the central themes for the novel: love and loss. Author Lagan’s descriptions of art and life are amazing as are his tie-ins with his characters lives and Cézanne’s art.
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Shadow is a Colour (as light is) (Lume Books, December 15, 2020) is available through:
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