Skylight Confessions ~ a semi-ghost story by Alice Hoffman

On the night of Arlyn Singer’s father’s funeral…

She whispered a bargain, as though her whispering could make it true.

The first man who walks down the street will be my one love and I will be true to him as long as he’s true to me.

She turned around twice and held her breath as a way to seal the bargain.

Soon after, a young man pulled up to the porch to ask her for directions. John Moody was an architect student. After three surreal nights together, John tries to escape, going back home. Arlyn follows him because she believes in fate. She believes in love. John allows himself to float along into marriage and the two soon have a son named Sam.

Years later, Arlyn and John are both floating through life and through their marriage. Sam is the only thing that keeps Arlyn anchored, and John is never around. Arlyn second guesses her convictions and wonders if she shouldn’t have waited for the next man to walk down the street. Soon, she falls in love with George Snow, the window washer who comes weekly to wash the Glass Slipper she lives in.

When Sam is four, Arlyn tells him that he’s going to be a big brother. She thinks it will be a girl, and her name will be Blanca, because it means white as snow. When Blanca was three months old, Arlyn felt the lump. Soon after she died, leaving John to marry his next door neighbor Cynthia and raise his sullen son, Sam and his wife’s love child, Blanca, whom he believes to be his own.

And that’s when Alice Hoffman’s Skylight Confessions truly begins.

Meredith Weiss sees John Moody when she’s dragged to a psychic party. She sees the ghost of his first wife following him as well. When she follows him to his house, and is able to lure Sam off the roof, a now detached, strange and miserable Sam, John and Cynthia offer this overqualified art major a job as their nanny.

The rest of the book shows the effects of the events and people in Part One, both from inside the family through John and the children, as well as outside the family through Meredith, Cynthia and even George Snow.

Here and there, the book touches briefly upon a supernatural phenomenon, such as the apparition that draws Meredith to the family, but that is very secondary. What made this such an incredible read was the writing style. Much like Arlyn is described, Hoffman’s writing style is soft, poetic, dreamy. Even dancing around such harsh realities as delinquent teenage boys, extramarital affairs, and the like, Hoffman writes in such a way as to keep the end result a lovely experience.

Published in January, 2007, Skylight Confessions is Alice Hoffman’s 19th novel. You can read more about her, and get a list of her books at her official website: www.alicehoffman.com.

Though this review gives more plot than my normal reviews, it barely touches the full depth of the story. It was one of the better books I’ve read this year. Highly recommended.