The Blind Light follows the lives of Drummond and Carter over many decades. They meet during National Service and come from vastly different social backgrounds. The sweep of the last half of the twentieth century is told via their differing viewpoints.

I started reading this book full of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the characters didn't gel with me, nor the period, I think my reaction might have had to do with the lockdown. I needed books to help me cope and this one made me feel more depressed.

Brother and sister Nate and Anneka meet in the family home for the first time in over thirty years. But what has happened in the intervening years?

The story starts in 1959 with Drummond Moore completing his National Service where he meets James Carter, a man from a different social class who soon becomes fast friends with Drum as they finish their service at Doom Town, a Nuclear fallout training facility in Cumbria. It is here that Drum meets and falls in love with Gwen, the landlady at the local pub. The experiences at Doom Town overshadow Carter and Drum for the rest of their lives. Upon leaving the army, Drum returns to the assembly line at Ford's Dagenham plant and Carter returns to the family estate to marry his girlfriend, Daphne. Soon the events of the 1960's rear their heads and Drum fleas north to stay with Carter, the man who told him the family had their own nuclear fallout shelter. These events lead Drum and Carter down a new path, a path that changes both of their lives and ultimately drives the families apart.

This is a novel that spread across decades and multi generations. Beginning in 1959 and ending in present day it covers many significant events from those decades and we examine how they effect the families in the story. We are reminded how decisions made by one person can have a knock on effect across other family members and can resonate through the years.

I had little sympathy for any of the characters as they are predominately displayed selfish and single minded attitudes. The story moved at a glacial pace and took the longest time to get anywhere. I can't the say the story ever really gets going and I spent most of the time waiting to get somewhere. It is not a light story by any means, instead you can feel the weight of the world in every word.

For some people this will be a book they adore, for me it was a bit too heavy and didn't have enough to keep me reading it and I know I won't read it again.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Blind Light by Stuart Evers is a historical/literary fiction that tells us the story of Drum, Gwen, and their family. We go from 50s to the present following our characters through life-changing events that shape their lives. The story revolves mainly around Drum and Gwen and their kids Nathan and Anneka. Their story is intertwined with Carter, Drum's friend from the service. The book is about their lives, how global events, atomic attacks, family, and relationships bring people together and how they break them apart. Carter and Drum meet during his time at the National Service as they prepare for the aftermath of the Atomic Strike. The two become fast friends and decide to protect their families from the atomic strike by staying in the underground bunker with all the facilities to sustain them. The time in the military leaves Drummond with damages that are far deeper, and traumatic than anything he expected. Fear of death and the impact of the global events that deeply affect personal lives certainly takes center stage in driving the narrative of Drum's life forward. Gwen on the other hand a from being a barmaid to the wife of a deeply traumatized Drum takes us through a rather tremulous marriage and motherhood. The heavy-handed parenting, lack of trust, and deep-seated emotional baggage all lead up to promises made and promises broken in this slow-paced literary style story.

Overall, my experience with this book is it was a depressing read and left me sad and gloomy. For me to enjoy a book thoroughly I need to feel connected to the characters and be invested in their journey when it comes to historical/literary style fiction. If not this then I want to be able to understand them and neither of these happened to me. So I am saying this with a heavy heart that this book wasn't my cup of tea. I wish I had a great time reading it and connecting with it, but unfortunately, that's not the case. I gave the book 2 stars. Just because the story didn't work for me doesn't mean it won't work for you. I still think you should check it out for yourselves and see what you think. I would recommend this book if you are into long, slow-paced stories that take on a tumultuous journey through the ups and downs of life, friendships, marriage, and parenting.

A very compelling premise and portrait of a moment in time, living in the threat of nuclear war and in the shadow of potential destruction. I enjoyed how the novel spanned the generations and gave us insights into the cultural and historical themes of the day, but I found the novel to be too long, and I had trouble connecting strongly to the characters and their motivations.

Cumbria, 1959. Drum has travelled north as part of his National Service when he meets the two people are to shape the rest of his life: Carter, a fellow recruit whose Oxford University background could not be more different to Drum’s Essex upbringing; and Gwen, a local barmaid with a love of books and dreams of her own.
These are young lives lived and forged under the threat of nuclear war. When the Cuban Missile Crisis strikes, it is to Carter that Drum and his family turn. As the years continue to turn, taking the nation from strikes to Foot and Mouth to the War on Terror, theirs are relationships that will be stretched and tested to breaking point.
The Blind Light is a big canvas of a novel, offering a cinematic sweep of a country through fifty years of change. Stuart Evers underpins this widescreen feel with a sharp eye for social detail, and a human story at his novel’s heart.

(Living Magazines, June 2020)

Thank you to Netgalley, Stuart Ivers and Pan Macmillan for this e-copy in return for my honest review. Seldom does a novel live up to its hype, but wow, what a story. Filled with feeling, emotional and friendship. This author deserves all the praise possible for this simply stunning book.

There is so much to praise in this epic novel that sweeps through decades of national and global history. Through troubled times we follow the lives of fascinating, if flawed, characters. Although a long novel, it keeps the reader's interest throughout.

This is my first Stuart Evers book and I hope it won't be the last! He takes us on a powerful journey of friendship between 2 men, from the 1950's onwards including some of the worlds most awful events including 9/11. A wonderful story.

The Blind Light is a beautifully written story of the lives, friendship, family, love and class differences of Drum and Carter from their meeting at conscription training to the present day. The relationship between these two men is a strange one, at times it feels like they are "friends" out of habit or convenience rather than want but at the end you feel their true friendship. The story is emotional and brought me to tears.
Stuart Evers writing style is interesting, the short chapters make this pretty long book easy to read and it is a worthwhile read.

I was given a copy of The Blind Light by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

This is easily one of my top reads of 2020. I loved the luminous, unique, poetic prose and narrative voice. The characters were fantastic - authentic, compelling and refreshingly human. Plus, as a lover of modern history, it was so wonderful to follow these two families through the mire and occasional majesty of recent social history - from the 1950s until the modern day. It certainly seems that Stuart Evers' novel deserves all the hype!

A whopping book on every front. Long, detailed and following a sweep of history from the Cold War to the present day through friendship and two families, both from opposite ends of the society. Drummond and Carter meet doing their National Service in 1959 in Cumbria when a tip off cements their friendship. It follows their peripatetic lives through six decade. This is a bold, complicated, detailed book of great ambition which is realised.

Stuart Evers’ latest novel is an ambitious and sprawling saga spanning 60 years, a tale of friendship, class and family, underpinned by fear of the threat of nuclear destruction. In 1959, working class Drummond Moore and upper-class James Carter meet while doing their national service at Doom Town, a nuclear training ground in Cumbria. Here servicemen could go to learn about survival after a nuclear war, something envisioned as a very real danger at the time. There develops a mutual dependency between them which carries on after they leave the service, in spite of their class difference, and their lives become inextricably linked. The cold war theme and the threat of potential nuclear annihilation is a potent idea, and its effect on the characters in the novel makes for some interesting reading, but overall the novel didn’t work for me. There were too many inconsistencies in the characters’ behaviour which left too many unanswered questions. I don’t want to give too much away, but at one point there is an estrangement that lingers on down the years, and yet is never fully explored, key though it is to the plot. I didn’t find any of the characters sympathetic. Carter in particular is most unattractive and unpleasant and the book never fully explores why Drummond is so in thrall to him. The women are portrayed quite stereotypically especially Daphne, Carter’s wife, and the sub-plot of Drummond’s son’s sexuality is unnecessary to the plot while some scenes are both superfluous and distasteful. Neither of the men seems to pay any attention to how their attitudes and actions affect their children even when everything starts to crumble around them. Stylistically, Evers’ overworked quirks grated after a while, with his habit of writing in disjointed sentences and phrases, a mannered style which detracted from the narrative flow. I enjoyed the book up to a point, and found it readable enough, but I simply couldn’t buy into how much this seminal experience in Doom Town could carry on overshadowing their lives when so many other world events came along to displace it. An unconvincing and unsatisfying read overall.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I came into this expecting great things from the reviews this book is getting, but honestly I wasn't blown away. The use of the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation made a nice impetus for the plot, but I felt apart from that it was a fairly standard tale of intergenerational strife alongside commentary on class and gender. I really disliked that basically the first thing you find out about Drum is that he has a big penis, which then turns out to have nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the plot of the book. It left me feeling very meh.

I had read two of Stuart Evers' short story collections, and was interested to read his first novel. It is absolutely sublime, I can't recommend it highly enough.

I just loved this story of friends through generations - even at over 500 pages, I didn't want to put it down, it didn't feel long at all. Drum and Carter meet during National Service, and we follow their friendship as their lives progress - marriages, children - and as they live through landmarks in modern history. The 2 main events which affect the men are the strikes at the Ford plant at Dagenham where Drum worked for a while, and the threat and fear of a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis - the latter being the focal turning point for the story.

It was fascinating finding out more about the events surrounding these periods of history - I wasn't born when either of these parts of history played out. I loved all the characters, especially Gwen, Drum's wife, who always appears the stronger of the couple. Drum and Carter's friendship doesn't always run smoothly - they are from different social backgrounds, with Carter often looking down his nose at Drum and playing the upper hand, but their friendship remains strong through their whole lives.

An enjoyable read.

There has been a lot of "buzz" about this book and how amazing it is, so perhaps I had unrealistic expectations as I found it an interesting but not a "must read". The story follows Drum, a working class lad from Dagenham who works on the Ford production line until he is sent to do his National Service in Wales and meets Carter, a confident, born to lead wealthy guy who is also doing his National Service and who will become his lifelong friend. Whilst assigned to the Catering Corp they are haunted by the barracks "Doom Town", a mock up of a town centre destroyed by a nuclear bomb which Drum spends hours exploring. The psychological effect of knowing the "truth" about the bomb and how if affects their family relationships is explored over the course of Drum's life. None of the characters are partcularly likeable and at times I found the narrative a bit disjointed. It also took me a few chapters before the storyline "clicked" with me. I also wanted to find out the answers to some questions about significant events in the book but frustratingly they were not revealed.

I liked how the story was a bit different in dealing with how real and threatening the possibility of a nuclear attack felt in the 60's and 70's (as a teen I had CND posters on my wall and knew all about how many ICBM's were stationed in Europe) it's something that isn't really talked about these days (even though it is just as likely to occur, although perhaps with different partcipants). The famous BBc drama "Threads" from the 80's also features quite a lot in the narrative. It's not a cheery read but it is long so kept me occupied for a few evenings at the tail end of Lockdown and if you like books dealing with serious issues then it would make a good holiday read.

Drum and Carter meet during the 1950s while in the army doing National Service, and although they are unlikely friends, a bond is formed that will last throughout their lives. Upper class Carter uses his connections to get them both assigned to the nuclear war testing project at Doom Town, an experience that will haunt them both and have long-term repercussions for them and their families. Working-class Drum often seems to be being used for Carter’s personal ends, but also reaps benefits, and a genuine attachment develops over the years, although the effects on the next generation could not have been foreseen. The strengths of this novel lie in its strong sense of historical background, particularly the portrayal of the fear and paranoia of the Cold War era, when nuclear war was a very real possibility and survival uncertain. Drum’s job in the Ford car factory with the regular worker strikes recalls a very different society, and the changes in the Carter family fortunes as the children of both families grow up illustrates the blurring of class lines in recent times, as the old threat is replaced by newer ones such as terrorism. I feel that the characters could have been better developed, as I didn’t always understand their motives, particularly regarding the estrangement in the later part of the book, but it was an interesting look at a period that is not always well served in modern fiction.

I'm not sure that I liked this book but I read it avidly and thought about it for some time afterwards. It is the story of two men, one with every privilege and one who has had a harder start in life, who become friends during National Service and experience a training camp on dealing with the aftermath of a Nuclear Bomb. The story really deals with keeping safe, albeit your family, yourself, your friends and the two families are intertwined through the next generation as Drum takes over the running of a farm on Carter's estate. Drum wants to keep his children safe but his over-protectiveness results in his daughter leaving and disharmony between the families. I didn't really warm to any of the characters but they were skillfully drawn as flawed beings living in a flawed world. I found the middle part of the book a bit drawn out but I loved the ending which gave a satisfying conclusion to what is an excellent work of fiction.

This novel deals with relationships -between parents and children,husbands and wives ,and friends- in the context of two families,the Carters and the Moores. Jim Carter and Drummond Moore meet while doing their National Service, and maintain a close friendship throughout their lives in spite of the difference in class.Their families are linked through this friendship but it also has adverse effects on some of them.
The story is told through major events that affect the two families- from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the London bombings in 2005 - and is a realistic depiction of contemporary Britain.
The writing is of a very high quality ,and is very moving in parts although I found the pace quite slow at times.I think it would be a good choice for book groups,as there is a great deal to discuss .
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinions.