How the Light Gets In

 

How the Light Gets In by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2024

Finished on July 7, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

From New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her beloved novel Count the Ways —a complex story of three generations of a family and its remarkable, resilient, indomitable matriarch, Eleanor. 

**** Spoiler Alert - Do not read if you haven't read Count the Ways ****

Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-seven-year-old Eleanor resides on the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. 

**** End of Spoiler ****

How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2009 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship). With her trademark sensitivity and insight, Joyce Maynard paints an indelible portrait of characters both familiar and new making their way over rough, messy, and treacherous terrain to find their way to what is, for each, a place to call home.

I was really looking forward to reading How the Light Gets In, but sadly it didn't live up to my high expectations. Joyce Maynard's earlier novel, Count the Ways, made my 2023 Top Ten list and I was eager to revisit the follow-up story of Eleanor and her family. Since it had been over a year since I read the previous novel, I decided to give the final chapters in that book a quick re-read. I shouldn't have bothered. Maynard spends an excessive amount of time providing backstory details, not just in the opening chapters, but throughout the entire book. At 422 pages in length, I felt the novel could have used more editing to cut through the repetitious detail of past and present details of Eleanor's life. The first half of the story lacks tension, which made it difficult for me to immerse myself in the book. The references to historical events that I enjoyed reading about in Count the Ways were overdone here, as if Maynard had a checklist to complete, dropping incidents such as the Sandy Hook school shooting, the disappointing election in 2016, Covid and the negativity toward vaccines and Dr. Fauci, John Prine's death, as well as George Floyd's murder. I also felt the sudden mending of one relationship a bit far-fetched after so many years of estrangement. With all of these quibbles, it's a wonder I finished the book, but the second half was a little fresher with enough to keep me interested. And the musical references (Kris Kristofferson's Help Me Make It Through the Night, Warren Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart, and John Prine's When I Get to Heaven) are always a treat when encountered in a novel. While this may be my least favorite of Joyce Maynard's, I've certainly read a lot of winners by her. Click on any of the links below to read my reviews:

The Bird Hotel (4.5/5)

Count the Ways (5/5)

After Her (4/5)

Where Love Goes (4/5)

Labor Day (4.5/5)

The Usual Rules (5/5)