Ghost Light: A Novel

Ghost Light, Joseph O'Connor★★★

Theater people are a superstitious lot. This aptly titled novel refers to one of the more common of those superstitions: a light that is left on in a theater to allow its resident ghosts to perform on stage after the theater closes, thus appeasing them and preventing them from wreaking havoc on the production or its audience. Throughout the pages of this novel, the actress Maire (Molly) O'Neill, nee Mary Allgood, like a theater ghost, relives the important moments of her life as she moves toward its tragic end. Molly is a real-life character, one of the most famous actress of the Dublin stage in the early 1900s. Her love affair with playwright John Millington Synge was deemed as scandalous as his play "The Playboy of the Western World" by Irish society, which could not see beyond the differences in their social classes. Their relationship, as portrayed in the novel, was deep, lasting until Synge's untimely death in 1909, not yet 39 years of age. O'Connor weaves in and out of eras, from 1905 Ireland to 1930s Hollywood to 1954 London, where the down-and-out alcoholic actress met her death. All of the major actors in the Irish Literary Revival make at least a brief appearance in the narrative, a bonus for all who love Irish literature and history. O'Connor's prose is filled with wonderfully crafted descriptions of place, time, and emotions. The tale is so well told that it will make little difference whether the reader is a student of Irish literature or just a lover of a captivating tale with an Irish flair.