In the Light of What We See
In the Light of What We See tells the stories of two women separated by 80 years. The contemporary story of Mina Morgan is told in the first-person point of view, while in 1938, Grace Kemp’s story is told in the third person. Both women share two things in common: the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton, where Mina is recuperating from a near fatal car crash and where Grace worked as a nurse; and both women see things that aren’t there. Their lives and personalities are dissimilar. Mina is a highly educated professional who refuses to face what life has handed her, while Grace is a naive nurse-in-training, who has all but been disowned by her strict parents and now must fend for herself in a world she knows nothing about.
I found myself feeling for Grace as representative of the young woman of her time, but had difficulty empathizing with Mina as a contemporary woman, whose wisecracking didn’t make up for her refusal to own up to the realities of her life. The connection between Mina and Grace and their stories is weak and not integral to the other or their outcomes. The mystic elements are also minor and either explained away or easily resolved. In the Light of What We See was a fast read, but fell short of expectations.
