"The Light on Farallon Island"

Jen Wheeler is a former managing editor of Chowhound and lives in Oregon.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Light on Farallon Island, and reported the following:

On page 69 of my novel, the main character has just gone up to see the inner workings of the lighthouse with Abigail Clifford, a lightkeeper’s wife, and Abigail’s daughter, Joy:

“The flame inside only rises about two inches tall,” Mrs. Clifford replied in a similarly hushed tone. “But the way the lens magnifies it, it shines out across the ocean for miles. It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”

The normally reticent Joy pointed out its other features at length. She was recounting how Mary carried the oil up for the lamp when the happy satisfaction faded from her face. “It’s made from whales,” she said. “The oil.”

“Not humpbacks, though,” said her mother. “Or blue whales.”

That clearly didn’t matter to her daughter.

“It’s for the greater good,” Mrs. Clifford added. “And remember Genesis.”

“God blessed them,” Joy dutifully recited, “and said unto them, ‘Have dominion over the fish of the sea.’”

Her mother cupped the back of Joy’s head and kissed her temple. “All according to His plan,” she said. “Now, shall we see the view He’s wrought?”

Despite this being a mere snippet that gives no suggestion of the actual plot and doesn’t even feature the main character speaking, I’m pleasantly surprised by how illuminating the test is for my book—with further context, at least. Without it, I hope that mentions of whale oil and lighthouse beams are intriguing enough to capture a casual browser’s interest…and that the Bible talk doesn’t make it seem like strictly a work of religious fiction.

Page 69 obviously makes direct reference to the main physical source of light evoked by the book’s title, and also hints at an awe of nature underpinning the story. But it taps into some less pleasant thematic veins as well, including the exploitation of seemingly inexhaustible natural resources, and the way that people often use faith to justify harmful behavior.

Another motif captured here is that of perfectly explicable phenomena that could easily be ascribed to supernatural causes by someone without scientific background knowledge (a fata morgana and electromagnetic aurora show up elsewhere in the book). This particular example—of a tiny candle flame being magnified into a mighty beacon—dovetails beautifully with my main character’s mental image of an internal guiding light that she strives to protect from multiple perils throughout the book, and that ends up shining out to others in need of safe harbor.

Visit Jen Wheeler's website.

--Marshal Zeringue