Description
The Fractured Hues of White Light is an emotional journey that explores
who we love and why we love them. Mother, father, daughter, siblings,
lovers, spouses, and friends; it’s all love in some form. It is a story
about Samantha Ryder, a young autistic woman who is an artist; it is
because of her handicap that she often fails to articulate her emotions
with an appropriate demonstration. Ironically, the ‘normal people’ who
surround her are just as incapable of communicating their feelings,
creating a sense of isolation full of things left unsaid. Samantha’s
uncanny artistic ability is limited to being a novelty after her father
encouraged her to create miniatures of the greatest hits of art history
for a wealthy clientele. For years, she has filled sketchbooks with
drawings that she feels mean nothing, yet they mean everything. Within
the abstract scribbles are the portraits of the people who she loves;
the quirk of her disability is how she is very aware of the emotions of
her loved ones. They love her with unconditional bonds that vary in
degrees; her mother Lenore’s maternal nurturing is sorely missed after
her death when Sammy was six. Her father, Whitley, is a possessive
narcissist, but his heart is always in the right place. Memories of the
protective love of her father’s stepson, Guthrie, filtered into her
adolescent fantasies. Her half-sister, Helena, exhibits a lackadaisical
tolerance and irritable impatience, yet offers a clinging-vine
possessiveness in spite of herself. The lingering romantic feelings of
her friend and former lover, Sylvester, manifest in his boundless
patience; their continued friendship stands firm on a foundation of
trust. When Samantha agreed to marry Preston Ackerman, she initially
believed that she could learn to love him, but the empty bond between
them causes her to emotionally lose ground. As their marriage falls
apart, Preston becomes dangerous, forcing her to go on a journey of
self-preservation away from the familiar security of home. Her escape
threatens to be her undoing.
The Story Behind This Book
The main character, Samantha Ryder, really fascinated me for a very long time (before she even had a name). She came from no one I ever knew... she's autistic, I never met anyone who is autistic, but... I first "met" the idea of her when I was taking a child psychology class in college (1980-1982) and I wrote a paper about autism. The mysterious condition interested me very much on a personal level that inspired me to write about it beyond that class paper. I was also taking a creative writing class that semester and I wrote a poem based on the ideas that came to me while I pieced together my paper (the poem was included in the paper, and the prof loved it!) The notion of color and emotions, art theory and art history, savants and autism continued to gather in my mind for years...I always knew I'd do something with it someday...ten years ago I started writing these things down for the first time, and this young woman with dark button eyes came into being as if she was always there, her stream-of-consciousness drawings and peculiar ways were almost second nature to me as if I have always known her...she could be me in some form since she's been with me for so long, but I'd like to think of her as her own character, created over time...no different from any other idea that inspires me to write books or paint pictures.
