Girl in the Dark

A Memoir

De: Anna Lyndsey

Narrado por: Hannah Curtis

Haunting, lyrical, unforgettable, Girl in the Dark is a brave new memoir of a life without light.

Anna Lyndsey was young and ambitious and worked hard; she had just bought an apartment; she was falling in love. Then what started as a mild intolerance to certain kinds of artificial light developed into a severe sensitivity to all light.
Now, at the worst times, Anna is forced to spend months on end in a blacked-out room, where she loses herself in audiobooks and elaborate word games in an attempt to ward off despair. During periods of relative remission, she can venture out cautiously at dawn and dusk into a world that, from the perspective of her cloistered existence, is filled with remarkable beauty. And through it all there is Pete, her love and her rock, without whom her loneliness seems boundless.
One day Anna had an ordinary life, and then the unthinkable happened. But even impossible lives, she learns, endure. Girl in the Dark is a tale of an unimaginable fate that becomes a transcendent love story. It brings us to an extraordinary place from which we emerge to see the light and the world anew.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Absolutely stunning ... A gorgeous writer of rare honesty and wit."
—Boston Globe

"Melodic, penetrating ... [Girl in the Dark] reveals the quiet, ingenious consciousness of a poet. Anna Lyndsey is both close observer and philosopher, capable of describing her world and also of pondering what it signifies."
—The New York Times Book Review

"What stays with the reader is [Lyndsey's] gutsiness, her imagination and fortitude. She doesn’t give up, but keeps looking for ways to stay sharp."
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[Girl in the Dark] sparkles with dark humour and wonder at the world … beautifully affecting … A tribute to the power of humanity, generosity and endurance, Girl in the Dark is incredibly powerful stuff."
—The Guardian

"An extraordinary memoir … Girl In The Dark is beautifully written. The author’s intelligence shines on every page, and her will to survive (despite those black thoughts in her dark room) is inspiring."
—Daily Mail

"Deeply affecting ... Working gingerly with the array of metaphors that emerge from darkness and offering small, telling details, Lyndsey achieves a powerful assertion of self against the eclipse of all that she used to hold dear in the realm of light."
—Publishers Weekly

"The premise of Girl in the Dark seems lifted out of a Gothic novel: a woman whose flesh is burned by light is confined to a dark box of a room. But this story is so much more than a medical mystery or a nightmarishly true tale. I read this book, a memoir that reads like an epic poem, pen in hand, feverishly underlining sentence after sentence. Yes, life is suffering, but in the end, as Anna Lyndsey so aptly puts it, ‘Words are wonderful.’ This book is a gift, a testament to the power of art as a saving grace."
—Susannah Cahalan, author of the New York Times-bestselling Brain on Fire

"In this astonishing memoir Anna Lyndsey takes us into the world of a rare and shocking illness, and we emerge awed by a shining love story. Anna writes with such honesty and grace and mischief about how her condition forces her to retreat into blackness—yet we see that this new space she so bravely creates for herself is suffused with light."
—Sonali Deraniyagala, author of Wave, winner of the PEN/Ackerly Prize and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

"It takes courage to heal, to step outside and want to feel the full magnificence of the sun. Taking that journey with a writer of such rare gifts as Anna Lyndsey is pure pleasure."
—Christa Parravani, author of Her

Good Book

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Very interesting story.

What did you like best about this story?

This is a true story, amazing how some people endure.

Which character – as performed by Hannah Curtis – was your favorite?

Pete - he was a good man.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Loved this book!!!

This is an exquisite performance of a sublime book. Written with stark honesty & laugh out loud humour. Prose and poetry.

This is a great book

I am not one of those people who gives a 5 star review to every likable book they read. I give those 3 stars usually. I give 4 stars to a great book which has some flaw in my opinion. I thought this was a great book, and I have no complaints about it whatsoever. For me a coping mechanism in times of stress is to think about how things could be worse and to use that to appreciate what I have. This book is great material for that. The bizarre nature of Lyndsey's chronic illness provides a way to look at life completely differently, and helped me see my mundane activities in a new light. The narrator was perfect. She conveyed the emotions of the very likable Lyndsey in a way that made them easy to empathize with. Lyndsey's time in the dark has caused her to look at things differently and she was able to really share that. A memoir of chronic illness can be a real downer but I did not find this one to be that way. Certainly, you feel for Lyndsey during setbacks, and you understand her despair, but there is something so undefeatably upbeat about her that she's inspiring rather than depressing.

Poetic look at an unusual life

Would you consider the audio edition of Girl in the Dark to be better than the print version?

Definitely! Hannah Curtis BECAME Anna Lindsay. She is dry and whitty when needed, in the depths of despair when called for.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Anna, of course, and Pete, who loves her and supports her and treats her like a human, not just someone with a disability/

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes! It is short enough to read on a long road trip, detailing all the ways Anna lives a happy and fulfilled life, with her hopes and dreams and successes and setbacks.

Any additional comments?

Terrific book! In some ways, ehr experiences are similar to living with blindness, yet very different. She is all-too-human, with an unusual disability, trying to find a way to carve out a fulfilling life outside the presence of many forms of light.
What a fighter!