Book Review: The Dying Of The Light

Author: Robert Goolrick

Publication Date: July 3, 2018

Publisher: Harper

From the author of the bestselling A Reliable Wife comes a dramatic, passionate tale of a glamorous Southern debutante who marries for money and ultimately suffers for love—a southern gothic as written by Dominick Dunne.

It begins with a house and ends in ashes . . .

Diana Cooke was "born with the century" and came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early that her parents had only one asset, besides her famous beauty: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth, which has hosted the crème of society and Hollywood royalty. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations.

The mysterious Captain Copperton is an outsider with no bloodline but plenty of cash. Seeing the ravishing nineteen-year-old Diana for the first time, he’s determined to have her. Diana knows that marrying him would make the Cookes solvent and ensure that Saratoga will always be theirs. Yet Copperton is cruel as well as vulgar; while she admires his money, she cannot abide him. Carrying the weight of Saratoga and generations of Cookes on her shoulders, she ultimately succumbs to duty, sacrificing everything, including love.

Luckily for Diana, fate intervenes. Her union with Copperton is brief and gives her a son she adores. But when her handsome, charming Ashton, now grown, returns to Saratoga with his college roommate, the real scandal and tragedy begins.

Reveling in the secrets, mores, and society of twentieth-century genteel Southern life, The Dying of the Light is a romance, a melodrama, and a cautionary tale told with the grandeur and sweep of an epic Hollywood classic.

This novel reads just like a Southern Gothic novel. As a fan of Flannery O’Connor, I am all for Robert Goolrick’s writing style. This was the first novel of his I have read, but it will not be the last. These characters and the Southern manor backdrop transported me to another world and made me want to watch Gone With The Wind a million times on repeat. The characters come with their own secrets and mysteries, and this is what makes them exceptional. I am a stickler for a good southern belle, being one myself, and Goolrick delivers in this aspect big-time. Goolrick’s writing is as beautiful and passionate as a sweeping, Southern mansion and this novel has definitely inspired me to go and check out his other works.

It begins with a house and it ends in ashes.

The memory of the Civil War still hung over them all like a shroud, as present as yesterday, and the Great War stabbed at the heart of the great families as sure as a bayonet.

It seemed the walls of her house, Saratoga, were lined with portraits of heroes of the life’s blood of America itself, and now only she was left, the last Cooke, her sex a disappointment to everybody. 

Girls in her situation were marrying dukes and earls and even princes because the royals lived in these big piles they couldn’t afford to heat. But these were rich girls, the awkward daughters of the new robber barons. She was poor. They had lived by their wiles and an aristocratic condescension even the rich girls couldn’t muster.

This story is rich in plot, characterization, and beautifully written prose. The manor, Saratoga, feels like a character in itself and will reel you in with its detail, secrets, love, and loss. I love books that inspire me to go looking for more – more from the author, the era, and the genre. This was a truly great read!

***A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Harper in exchange for my honest review***