Everyone remembers where they were on September 11. I was a sophomore in college trying to decide what to wear to my first Science, Ethics, and Technology class (sorry not sorry if I've said this before in my many years of shameless self promotion). In case you're wondering, I went with a hot pink floral cami and midi skirt from Fashion Bug, which was where I worked every summer. Also, it turns out that I was in the wrong class, although the prof let me stay. But that's my (perhaps inappropriately lighthearted) anecdote. In Jill Santopolo's The Light We Lost, which was my mom's latest book club pick, things are much more complicated.
When Columbia seniors Lucy Carter and Gabe Samson sit down for their first Shakespeare seminar, they don't know each other or what that day will bring. Hours later they watch the Twin Towers tumble. Their bond is instant but their timing is wrong, a theme that defines their next decade. Both grow to be storytellers, Lucy as a children's television producer and Gabe as a photojournalist. Yet although they're different in irreconcilable ways, they share a passion for making a difference.
Santopolo writes The Light We Lost as Lucy's letter to Gabe, making it achingly personal even as it reveals the universal nature of love, loss, and fate. Which is my senior seminar way of saying that it tears out your heart.
I loved it.
