The Lack of Light : A Novel of Georgia

A page-turning epic of loss and redemption in the vein of Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, about a group of four women who formed a deep friendship in the turbulent years leading up to and after Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union. They are four, as different as can be: the romantic Nene, the clever outsider Ira, the idealistic Dina, and the sensitive Keto.Inseparable since childhood, they grow up together in an old Tiblisi courtyard, in Georgia, at a time when the Soviet Union is crumbling and the future of their country is in question.Each in her own way experiences love, hope, and disappointment as local mob wars, romance, and civil war threaten to swallow up their worlds.Rising to challenges both personal and political -a first love that can only blossom in secret, violent street skirmishes, a ravaging drug epidemic-the four women’s friendship seems indestructible, until an unforgivable act of betrayal and a tragic death shatter