The Lamplighters: Emma Stonex

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The characters in the novel are flawed and not always likeable but this makes it more believable that they have chosen this way of life. Isolation and confinement take their toll on both the lighthouse keepers and their families. Sharks are] cool torpedoes of blubber, sliced at the gills, equipped with teeth. Fat and teeth, that’s the thing. Needles in a bowl of curd.’ Throughout the book, the reader is taken on a journey of discovery, as we learn about the lives of the three men, their struggles, and their secrets. We discover that Arthur had been dealing with guilt over an incident in his past, and felt that he needed a fresh start. In 1950, James D. Hart (author of The Oxford Companion to American Literature) noted that The Lamplighter could provide insight into the American culture of its time: The ending of The Lamplighters has been the subject of much discussion and debate since the book’s release. Readers have been fascinated by the mysterious disappearance of the three lighthouse keepers and have been eager to understand what really happened to them.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex | Waterstones

The weather is typically English, with a sky the color of Tupperware and rain falling steadily. Helen is accompanied by her dog, and as she climbs the hill towards Mortehaven Cemetery, she contemplates whether this could be her last trip. Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. Now, they have a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface . . . I liked that the timeline jumped between when the men went missing and 20 years into the future, with the lasting effect it had left. I also loved the chapters where their wives were speaking to the author, I’ve never read anything quite like that before. My only complaint was that I struggled in general with the writing style. I was unwell when I read this book so it’s possible that this affected my reading. But, I couldn’t get fully immersed in the book because the writing style didn’t suit me personally. That being said, I really enjoyed the ending and felt very moved, this definitely boosted my feelings on the book a little! With a small cast of not entirely likable characters, Stonex successfully makes us invested in what happens (and what happened). We know going in that this is a tragedy, and it turns out to be even more tragic than the initial description would have us believe. But despite the many traumas, the persistent grief, and the injustices we discover, The Lamplighters is not entirely bleak. There’s an elegiac beauty to be found here that brings to mind the poetry of Poe or Dylan Thomas. And while much of the novel is inspired by history—particularly the Flannan Isles Disappearance of 1900—Stonex has also included just enough otherworldly strangeness to give The Lamplighters an eerie campfire air:I found clingy home-maker Jenny the least likeable character (with Bill a close second) and I was really routing for jail-bird Vince until I found out he killed a dog, which I suspect says more about my own prejudices and unbalanced thinking than the story itself! I cared about Arthur and Helen and all that they had been through. Yet rather than the mystery, it is the complicated relationship between the three women left behind that is most vivid. Graceful, middle-class Helen faithfully tending her dead husband’s flame, mousy Jenny who wants to put it all behind her and Michelle who was very young when she met Vince and has built a new life. I had no idea that the real mystery had happened! This is the kind of book that sends me down a googling wormhole. Sometimes the best mysteries an author can create are those based on real events. I absolutely loved the setting of the lighthouse. It was so unique and felt particularly atmospheric and vivid. It actually made me want to go inside a lighthouse, to experience what the characters experienced.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex review – a superb debut

The sea will turn on you if you’re not paying attention; it changes its mind in the snap of a finger and it doesn’t care who you are.’ Normally when people come on, they know they’re not part of it. This is our world they’re in, so they have to toe the line… But there’s an unnatural feeling about Sid. I can’t say what. His voice is high-pitched for a bloke and for someone that big; it’s not entirely like a woman’s, but not far off. It doesn’t sit on him, like it doesn’t belong to him… The first half of the book dragged quite a bit. We got to know the three lighthouse keepers but we also got to know wives and girlfriends who were left behind after the disappearance.It’s the descriptions, the language, that I think I will remember most about this novel, that and the eerie evocation of a liminal world where we are poised, characters and readers alike, on the cusp of knowing and of not-knowing, of knowing and of not-wanting-to-know. As a mystery it kept me engaged, though I felt that the ‘aha’ moments didn’t always live up to expectation. We find out the true identity of Dan Sharp, for example, right at the end, but I’m not sure it was worth the wait, given keeping him out of the narrative until that point forces some artificiality into the transcripts that grated a little. When I’m ashore I have to pretend to be a man I’m not, part of something I’m not part of. It’s difficult to explain it to normal people. Lighthouse worlds are small. Slow. That’s what other people can’t do: they can’t do things slowly and with meaning…