Ultimately, I understand the decision to only give the draft “light edits,” as they are characterized in the publisher’s note.
Some redundancies in phrasing and dialogue could have been dealt with, and character development and exposition could have been done more smoothly. It could, however, have used an editor - obviously something that would have happened had Wagamese completed the novel. It read like other works of Wagamese’s, and there was a tangible amount of love and thought poured into it. I felt like a voyeur as I struggled through the first chapter before ultimately returning the book, always wondering how a young and healthy Lee would feel about these unfinished pages being distributed. Initially, this was a big turn-off for me, as my last similar experience was Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, whose publication was surrounded by allegations of elder abuse. Wagamese passed away in spring 2017 before he could complete the book, and his estate and literary agents were the ones who submitted the manuscript for publishing. Overall, Wagamese’s use of imagery creates an incredibly visually engaging book that I would highly recommend for visual readers like myself. Wagamese’s attention to detail goes down to the stiffness of a shirt.
He describes natural landscapes so richly that you never feel as if you’re in the same forest twice. He also uses some very powerful, carefully selected metaphors and motifs that enhance both his characters and his setting - and honestly, said setting is arguably given enough agency and depth to count as a character in its own right. Figure if I can help someone find that, I’m doin’ a good thing.’” ‘Comes to be a truth you carry in your bones. My favourite quote from the novel serves as one example. Wagamese draws on some very powerful themes in very elegant and straightforward ways. However, as with all of Richard Wagamese’s work, it’s not so much the story as it is how it’s told. This might sound like a fairly simple story - and in some ways it is.
Their shared lives are flipped when they take in Emmy Strong and her daughter Winnie, who are on the run from an abusive ex and his henchman. With him is his farmhand turned best friend, Eugene Roth. The titular character of Richard Wagamese’s swan song Starlight, Frank Starlight, is a quiet rancher living on the land where he was raised, which he knows like the back of his hand.
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