The Bright Unknown (Elizabeth Byler Younts) – Review

Posted 4 November 2019 by Katie in Christian Fiction, Historical, Review / 1 Comment

Title: The Bright Unknown
Author: Elizabeth Byler Younts
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release date: 22 October 2019
Pages: 368

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About the Book

This poignant and heartbreaking novel explores the power of resilience, the gift of friendship, and the divine beauty to be found in the big, bright world—if only we’re willing to look.

Pennsylvania, 1940s. The only life Brighton Friedrich has ever known is the one she has endured within the dreary walls of Riverside Home—the rural asylum where she was born. A nurse, Joann, has educated and raised Brighton, whose mother is a patient at the hospital. But Joann has also kept vital information from Brighton—secrets that if ever revealed would illuminate Brighton’s troubling past and the circumstances that confine her to Riverside. Brighton’s best friend is a boy she calls Angel, and as they grow up together and face the bleak future that awaits them, they determine to make a daring escape.

Nothing can prepare Brighton and Angel for life beyond Riverside’s walls. They have no legal identities, very little money, and only a few leads toward a safe place to land. As they struggle to survive in a world they’ve never seen before, they must rely on each other and the kindness of strangers—some of whom may prove more dangerous than the asylum they’ve fled.

Narrated in Elizabeth Byler Younts’s gorgeous style, The Bright Unknown is a sparkling search for answers, family, and a place to call home.

Excerpt

I’m not sure whom I should thank—or blame—for the chance to become an old woman. Though as a young girl, sixty-seven seemed much older than it actually is. My knees creak a little, but there are still blonde strands in my white hair.
I have watched the world grow up around me. I was old when I was born, so it seems. Was I ever really young? I’ve been around long enough now to know that progress is a relative term. What is progress anyway? A lot of damage has been done in the name of progress, hasn’t it? But then I have to think, where would I be without progress?
Not here.
There are a few other surprises about making it to 1990. We are still firmly living on planet Earth, the Second Coming hasn’t happened, despite predictions, and devices like the cordless phone are at the top of many wish lists for housewives. Another surprise is that housewives aren’t so common.
I haven’t taken much to technology myself and still use a rotary phone. But I did receive a ten-foot coiled cord as a gift. Recently I heard a girl say the words old school, so I guess that’s the new way to say what I am. There’s something funny about having a new way to say old-fashioned.
When you have a childhood like mine, being considered out-of-date is a compliment and means I’m among the living. There were times I didn’t know if I would live to be this age. Many women of a certain age would love to be able to move back the hands of time and remember the days of their youth. But I’d rather let them become as dull as my old pots and pans—they carry the nicks and dings from use over the years, but no one remembers how those wounds happened and the flaws don’t make them useless.
When I step outside and squint at the June sun, I’m caught off guard by the brightness. The sun and I are old friends, and she greets me with a nod as I walk beneath her veil of heat. The walk to my mailbox that’s at the end of a long drive has been part of my daily routine for years. Sometimes I amble down the natural path twice, just for the fresh air, but mostly to remind myself that I can. I don’t take freedom for granted. The gravel drive almost didn’t make it when we first moved in. My kids wanted us to pave it to make it easier to bike and scooter. But I didn’t like the idea of a strip of concrete dividing the green mowed lawn of our yard from the grasses that grew wild and untamed on the other side of the driveway. That path between the feral and the tame is dear to me and too familiar to let go of.
The grit from the stones beneath my soles is a safe reminder of where I come from. Painful memories sometimes rise off other gravel paths—some narrow and dark, and others that weren’t there till I made them with my own two feet. My driveway reminds me of the freedom I have to come and go as I please. Things were not always this way.
Taken from The Bright Unknown by Elizabeth Byler Younts
Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Byler Younts
Used by permission of http://www.thomasnelson.com/

Review

It’s daunting to sit here and try to put into words everything I experienced while reading this book. It’s a deeply thoughtful novel, and beautifully written, but at times I was so angry I didn’t know if I could keep reading. The stark reality—the inhumanity—of mental health “care” in generations past, not to mention the reasons some were subjected to such “care”, is painful knowledge to open yourself to, and that’s exactly what you will do when you read Brighton’s story. And yet, by the time I turned the final page, I felt as though I had been on a healing journey with Brighton. The heartache and the pain were no less real, but I truly felt as though the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, which Brighton also held onto, had been proven true: “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

I think the only reason I was able to continue reading at some points was because of the way the story was structured. The story opens in the “present day”—which, for the purposes of this story, is 1990—when Brighton, or Nell as she is now known, is sixty-seven. From that very first chapter, the reader knows that she has been married for over forty years and had children of her own, “amending her own childhood through motherhood.” That knowledge is like St Francis’s single candle, shining forth its light as the next chapter moves back to 1937 and Brighton’s childhood.

The majority of the story is then told from Brighton’s point of view as she’s growing up in the asylum, but every few chapters the reader returns to the present, where some photographs and other items from Brighton’s childhood at the asylum have been unearthed and returned to her—quite unexpectedly. These chapters were a much needed respite from the weight of Brighton’s childhood, but as painful as parts of her story were, I was utterly transfixed and almost desperate to know how it unfolded, to know how she reached a point where she was able to escape the asylum, let alone marry. And as Brighton herself says, “The wrongs can’t be righted, but remembering and knowing are important. Without remembrance, there is often repetition.”

So while this is not a book you should pick up lightly, it is definitely a book you should pick up. All else aside, if anyone can bring beauty out of such a story, it is a writer the likes of Elizabeth Byler Younts, her prose full of imagery and emotional nuance that taps into the heart of human experience.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.

From the Author

The Bright Unknown was born out of a seed of a true story that my husband’s grandmother, Gigi, shared with me. Gigi told me that when she was a young girl living in Oklahoma her mom had a friend who was a nurse. During one of her visits over coffee she would occasionally talk about her patients at the local asylum. One particular story really intrigued Gigi and even decades later she still remembered it. The story was about a patient who had a baby while at the hospital and while Gigi remembers nothing about the patient or the child, she knew that when she moved out of Oklahoma several years later that asylum-born girl was around eighteen and still living within the walls of that hospital along with her patient-mother.

That story stuck with me. This trapped girl and her mother wouldn’t let me go. I began to wonder over her and ask all sorts of unanswered questions. Slowly but surely my imagined story for her came to life. Layer after layer I learned about Brighton, my name for her. I also named two characters after Gigi, her first and middle, as an honor to her. This story was born from a memory but now these characters feel real and present in my life today and I hope you will journey with them in The Bright Unknown.

About the Author

Elizabeth Byler Younts writes women’s fiction for Harper Collins/Thomas Nelson. She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers. She gained a worldwide audience through her first book Seasons: A Real Story of an Amish Girl and is a RITA nominated writer. She is also the author of The Promise of Sunrise series. She has consulted on Amish lifestyle and the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect for two award-winning television shows. Elizabeth lives in Central Pennsylvania with her husband, two daughters, and a cockapoo named Fable.