Girl in the Dark is a tale of an unimaginable fate that becomes a transcendent love story. But even impossible lives, she learns, endure. One day Anna had an ordinary life, and then the unthinkable happened. Andthrough it all there isPete, her love and her rock, without whomherloneliness seems boundless. During periods of relative remission, she can venture out cautiouslyat dawn and dusk into a world that, from the perspective of her cloistered existence, is filled with remarkable beauty. Now, at the worst times, Annais forced tospend months on end in a blacked-out room, where she losesherself in audiobooks and elaborate word games in an attempt to ward off despair. Then what started as a mildintoleranceto certain kinds of artificiallight developed into a severe sensitivity to all light. Anna Lyndsey wasyoung andambitious and worked hard she had just bought an apartment she was falling in love. Photo-sensitivity or not, Anna Lyndsey brings a lot to the table, and I think she deserved better.Haunting, lyrical, unforgettable, Girl in the Dark is a brave new memoir of a life without light. I tried to chalk this up to English dryness but was unable to. I spent the whole book waiting for the turning point where it would turn into the advertised love story (not because I needed it to be that, just because it said it was that), only to end up completely incredulous that his big profound trait seems to have been that he simply didn’t dump her when she became disabled, and hung around unenthusiastically for the rest of the book. This lukewarm, underwhelming guy who bails on her when she needs him because he needs a damn vacation, leaves her hanging with no particular warmth when she brings up living together, and rarely provides her any real reassurance about the state of their relationship, which she would understandably be very anxious about. Between her and this guy! Not, like, her and the English language or something. But this guy? The jacket says that ultimately the book is a love story. Look, I can’t tell someone else what keeps them going or gives their life meaning. I do really take issue with the emphasis placed both on the jacket and within the book on the transformative power of her relationship.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think someone with a debilitating illness (in Lyndsey’s case, she has an extreme sensitivity to darkness that forces her to spend her life in total darkness) could be funny and brilliant and interesting, it’s just that I didn’t think a book solely about one particular illness would be…what it turned out to be. It’s funny and sad and really, really, really beautiful. There’s a recurring metaphor for suicidal thoughts that it just incredible. I thought this was going to be a depressing read that I trudged through because it was short and I sometimes feel obligated to bear witness to others’ pain.

Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey