THE LIGHTHOUSE ROAD
A deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape where they live.
Against the wilds of sea and wood, a young immigrant woman settles into life outside Duluth in the 1890s, still shocked at finding herself alone in a new country, abandoned and adrift. In the early 1920s, her son, now grown, falls in love with the one woman he shouldn’t and uses his best skills to build them their own small ark to escape. But their pasts travel with them, threatening to capsize even their fragile hope. In this triumphant novel, Peter Geye has crafted another deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape where they live at the mercy of wildlife and weather—and by the rough edges of their own breaking hearts.
PRAISE
“No author today writes from a sense of place as brilliantly as Peter Geye. The Lighthouse Road takes place in a broodingly atmospheric Northern Minnesota, peopled by tragic characters so influenced by their unforgiving environment, they can’t recognize love when they see it. This is a story that lingers long after you turn the last page.” —Melanie Benjamin
“To be submerged in the frothing, watery world of Peter Geye’s The Lighthouse Road is to be baptized anew in the promise of American letters. I defy you to bear witness to the tormented tenderness of Odd Eide, to suffer and love and row beside him in his skiff, without throwing down your nets. Here is an epic that spans more than generations. Here is an epic that spans the topography between helldark bear dens and moonlit lake water. Here is a novel that charts the whole of the human heart.” —Bruce Machart
“With spare realism, Geye puts a fresh spin on a familiar tale, rendering a powerful portrayal of family bonds in an era long past. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
“In his second novel, Geye brings the wilderness of northern Minnesota—in a lumberjack camp and a small town and aboard a skiff riding the waves of Lake Superior—to crackling, thundering life. Handled less skillfully, Geye’s emphasis on one primary trait in his characters—their intense longing for somewhere to belong and, at the same time, somewhere to be free—might come off as one-dimensional, but here the story and its people achieve remarkable emotional resonance. The echoes of the characters’ heartbreak through the generations are as haunting as the howling of the wolves on the wind.” —Booklist, starred review
“A richly nuanced collage that keeps readers guessing….a page-turner….”— Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A treasure. A story of love and loss and courage set in the wilds of northern Minnesota, spanning the decades from the end of the 19th century to the early 1920s….will resonate long after you turn the last page.” —Hudson Valley News
“[P]oignant and thought-provoking….This story is not about happiness or happy endings, it’s about surviving, both physically and emotionally. And that’s something we’re all trying to do.” —Tulsa Books Examiner
“Peter Geye’s engaging second novel, following 2011’s Safe from the Sea, is also set in northern Minnesota, near the rugged shores of Lake Superior ... As with Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, readers will feel as if they are experiencing the nature that Geye paints for them first-hand.” —BookPage
“This is a beautifully written book, richly detailed, stark and tragic, but with glimmers of hopefulness.” —Historical Novel Society
“Just when we wondered if Peter Geye could top Safe from the Sea, along comes this terrific new story from the logging camps of the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota. Spanning the 1890s to 1937, this is the story of Odd Eide and his “family.” Dark secrets set against a harsh landscape will put you in the mind of an Ingmar Bergman film. This is a must-read from a talented Minneapolis author.” —Susie Fruncillo, Lake Country Books
“Using language as stark as the unforgiving landscape it portrays, Peter Geye sets a story of desperate people in desperate times on the shores of Lake Superior. His characters not only struggle against the elements but also struggle to find humanity in a cruel environment. This is natural writing that not only conjures scene and place but also the eternal human battle.” —Bill Cusumano, Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI
“Peter Geye’s first book was a touching, regional portrait of the relationship between a father and son. This book takes the reader one step farther into a masterpiece. Historical fiction has a new contender, and his name is Peter Geye. This is a novel of love, betrayal, hope, and loss. It runs the gamut of human emotion and the reader is immersed into a convoluted relationship between an older woman and younger man in the 1890s. A novel of scandal and ice, The Lighthouse Road is an exceptional work.” —Jessilynn Norcross, McLean and Eakin
“Peter Geye writes with the mesmerizing power of the snowstorms that so often come howling off Lake Superior. I am in awe of how he swirls through so many years and juggles so many characters, all of them unforgettable and weighed down by secrets and regrets and desires that burn through the hoarfrost of Geye’s bristling sentences.” —Benjamin Percy
“To be submerged in the frothing, watery world of Peter Geye’s The Lighthouse Road is to be baptized anew in the promise of American letters. I defy you to bear witness to the tormented tenderness of Odd Eide, to suffer and love and row beside him in his skiff, without throwing down your nets. Here is an epic that spans more than generations. Here is an epic that spans the topography between hell-dark bear dens and moonlit lake water. Here is a novel that charts the whole of the human heart.” —Bruce Machart, author of The Wake of Forgiveness
“No author today writes from a sense of place as brilliantly as Peter Geye. The Lighthouse Road takes place in a broodingly atmospheric Northern Minnesota, peopled by tragic characters so influenced by their unforgiving environment, they can’t recognize love when they see it. This is a story that lingers long after you turn the last page.” —Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been