Light Perpetual

A Novel

By: Francis Spufford

Narrated by: Imogen Church

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, NPR, Slate, Lit Hub, Fresh Air, and more

From the critically acclaimed and award‑winning author of Golden Hill, an “extraordinary…symphonic…casually stunning” (The Wall Street Journal) novel tracing the infinite possibilities of five lives in the bustling neighborhoods of 20th-century London.

Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: the Woolworths on Bexford High Street in South London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages—after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children.

Who were they? What futures did they lose? This brilliantly constructed novel, inspired by real events, lets an alternative reel of time run, imagining the lives of these five souls as they live through the extraordinary, unimaginable changes of the bustling immensity of twentieth-century London. Their intimate everyday dramas, as sons and daughters, spouses, parents, grandparents; as the separated, the remarried, the bereaved. Through decades of social, sexual, and technological transformation, as bus conductors and landlords, as swindlers and teachers, patients and inmates. Days of personal triumphs and disasters; of second chances and redemption.

Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, Light Perpetual “offers a moving view of how people confront the gap between their expectations and their reality” (The New Yorker) and illuminates the shapes of experience, the extraordinariness of the ordinary, the mysteries of memory, and the preciousness of life.

Critic reviews

“With such vibrant characters, all of whom have rich interior lives, Spufford’s novel is perfect for audio…Scottish-born actor Imogen Church, known for her performances of Ruth Ware’s audiobooks, gives a wonderful voice to each of the five as they progress from childhood to old age.” (Deborah Mason)

Transcendently written and brilliantly performed.

This is one of those novels that manages to contain the world. Come for the sumptuous sentences; stay for the beautiful exploration of redemption.

Rich with detail and deeper meaning

Wonderful. Beautifully written and perfectly performed. The opening scene is tremendous and the rest does not disappoint.

deep and beautiful

At the beginning, I had trouble concentrating on the lives described, in their stunning intricacy, as I continued remembering...they died; these lives never happened. Finally, I was able to give in to the ineluctible weave of this master storyteller's tale.
This is a remarkable achievement and a memorable reading experience. Thank you, Frances Spofford.
Brilliant.

Brilliant narration

Such a magnificent ode to hope, full of futures, pasts spawned by and ending in dust. Never read anything comparable.

A great novel

the voice performance was excellent, and the story was very well written. A really fascinating perspective on the journey through life.