My Face in the Light

By: Martha Schabas

Narrated by: Sofia Banzhaf

A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2022

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 TORONTO BOOK AWARD

“My mother is an artist and I am a liar. Or, if I scratch the surface, my mother is a sick woman and I am an actress . . .”

Justine feels uneasy in her marriage, her theatre career and her relationship with her estranged mother, a famous painter. An intuitive and uncanny mimic, distinguished by a pronounced scar across her forehead (the result of a childhood accident), Justine has made acting the centre of her life since she was a teenager, but lately her outwardly charmed life in Toronto has begun to ring false. After a disastrous audition in London, England, a chance encounter with a stranger leads to an unorthodox business proposition that would allow Justine to abandon the world she knows indefinitely. As the complications and contradictions of leaving a life behind swell to the point of crisis, Justine must confront the collateral damage of a traumatic, long-repressed past.

In psychologically astute prose full of provocative insights, My Face in the Light is a piercing, poignant novel about truth in art and identity. It’s the story of a young woman owning up to the lies she’s fallen in love with, and figuring out if she can still recognize herself when she finally lets them go.

Critic reviews

NAMED A “MOST ANTICIPATED” BOOK BY THE CBC AND THE GLOBE AND MAIL
LONGLISTED FOR THE TORONTO BOOK AWARDS

“Martha Schabas has written a novel like cut crystal; clear, crisp prose that, when held up to the light of careful contemplation, reflects back many-hued revelations. She is a writer of astonishing intelligence.” —Jordan Tannahill, Giller Prize-nominated author of The Listeners

“Brilliant, provocative, and moving, My Face in the Light asks us to confront the boundaries we construct and the ones we fail to see.At once intimate and sweeping in its exploration of power, identity, art, and love, it dazzles us with the artistry of its characters, the simple beauty of its sentences, and its well-wrought form.” —Johanna Skibsrud, Giller Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists

“A piercing look into the incandescent prisons of memory. . . . written in a stream-of-consciousness, polished literary style evocative of Virginia Woolf.” —Quill & Quire

“Schabas writes delectably. . . . Emphatically introspective.” —Canadian Notes and Queries

“Compelling for its slice-of-life minutiae. . . . Absorbed in the poetry and drama of the everyday . . . quiet moments of desperation, which Schabas examines so skillfully. . . . A more thoughtful, reflective gaze would be hard to find. Schabas is sensitive to nuances, both internal and external, and articulates shades of meaning through vivid, precise prose. . . . The novel specializes in psychological set pieces . . . and penetrating, digressive commentaries on the human condition." —Literary Review of Canada