The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

One of my earliest memories is of being carried on my father’s shoulders along the cliffs towards a white lighthouse at Hunstanton in Norfolk. A little further on, and a little further around the coast, we had a holiday in Happisburgh whose own red and white striped version was perilously close to the rocks below. This building had been designed to warn of imminent danger to those already on the sea. It too was at risk of joining them – imminently.

In The Lamplighters Emma Stonex captures that fine line between the comfort of the light, faithfully kept burning by three lighthouse keepers, and the discomfort of life and death being such close neighbours. I had only really seen lighthouses and their keepers in a somewhat romantic light previously, and this novel is indeed atmospheric as it leads us into a vanishing and vanished way of life.
 
After a period of twenty years the narrator of this book is looking back at events in Cornwall in 1972 when our three keepers seemingly disappeared into thin air. Our appetites are immediately whetted by discovering that the only entrance door had been locked from the inside and all the clocks had stopped. There is some dispute about whether or not there had been bad weather in the area at the time, but the simple fact remains: they are gone.
 
We try to unravel the mystery with the help of the men’s partners who each have their own secrets – some independently as they try to move on, others closely connected with each other. All the time the sea surrounds the lighthouse just as they are each surrounded by doubt and a sense of hopelessness in the face of the unrelenting tides.
 
The book is undoubtedly beautifully written with phrases such as ‘when night yawns for morning and the sea starts to separate from the sky.’ That younger, romantic version of myself was immediately taken back to the coast and these strange monoliths with their unspoken truths. I felt that I was actually there in Cornwall, remembering my first visit to an aunt in Penzance just a year before this fictional event took place.
 
I raced through the first part of the book, intrigued of course by the central plot, but also where each of the key characters had been and where they were going. I really felt that I knew them well and understood the pain of their loss, expressed though this was in quite different ways. As an exploration of loneliness and the effects of isolation, it was outstanding.
 
I did think the second part was too long and could definitely have been shorter in the final third, although the denouement and choice of endings as back stories revealed themselves was gripping and kept me guessing right up until the end. I especially loved the way we discovered who the writer was, and why.
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For any readers seeking a good mystery with a healthy mix of romance and reality, while exploring themes of anxiety and depression, I would heartily recommend this story. I felt a sense of loss when I finished it too.

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