Figures of Light

The smart and diligent Allie Moberly grows up among her father’s decadent paintings and struggles tirelessly—yet in vain—to win her mother’s approval. Her mother, Elizabeth, is obsessively religious: she’s ready to feed the homeless and reach out to save the fallen, but she cannot love her own children. Allie’s youth is bound by discipline, an endless list of rules, and constant feelings of inferiority. When a bitter tragedy tears their family apart, the girl is forced to leave her home in Manchester and start a new life in London, where she is determined to join the first generation of women doctors.

“Figures of Light” by Sarah Moss is a piercing novel about upbringing, the emergence of feminism, and women’s drive for independence in the era of the Pre-Raphaelites and the suffragettes.

The Guardian on the book: “Figures of Light” is an important milestone in the work of a very fine writer, Sarah Moss. Her serious, restrained tone is a jewel in the palette of contemporary literature. Historical details are rendered vividly, even sensuously.”