"If I were a different sort of person," notes Anna Simon, the
central character of AWAKE, "this would be the story of my son and
the sanctuary we found for him. It would be the story of a family
coming together around a child's illness, finding a community, one
another, maybe even God." However, as Anna reminds readers
repeatedly throughout this novel, she is not that sort of person.
Instead, what starts out as a novel about a family centered on a
sick child develops into Anna's own story of personal reflection
and awakening.

Anna and her husband Ian have two sons: the eldest, Adam, is a
typical moody preteen, obsessed with soccer and computers, and a
little bit resentful of his younger brother, Max. Max, a shy
nine-year-old who still carries a stuffed owl everywhere, is
chronically ill with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), an exceedingly
rare skin disease. People with XP are completely intolerant of
sunlight --- even the light on a cloudy day can permanently damage
their skin. They suffer incredibly high rates of skin cancer and
blindness, and rarely live to adulthood.

Because of his illness, Max and Anna seem to live in their own
world. Anna homeschools Max after Ian and Adam have gone to bed.
They bake cookies in the wee hours, and Max runs around in the
moonlight for recess time. Anna adores Max but she fears for his
--- and her own --- isolation. Anna has had to give up so much for
Max, even her old identity as an artist. When Anna learns of a
special summer camp --- Camp Luna --- for XP kids and their
families, she is eager to help Max get to know other children with
the same condition.

Over midnight swims and starlit canoe rides, Anna discovers her own
awakening of sorts, as she becomes undeniably attracted to Hal, the
charismatic camp director. Hal seems to know Anna for herself, her
identity outside that of wife and mother. Anna responds warmly to
Hal's recognition of her artistic talents and her beauty, even as
her time at camp causes her to remember her younger, unattached
self and to grow apart from the family that brought her there in
the first place.

Elizabeth Graver does a masterful job of letting her readers inside
Anna's deepest, most personal thoughts. Because the narrative is so
rigorously focused on Anna's inner world, it is sometimes
repetitive, as Anna struggles to come to terms with her own
preoccupations. It is also sometimes painful to read, as when Anna
raises questions about her own fitness as a mother and about her
conflicted feelings over giving birth to a seriously ill child.
Sometimes, being inside Anna's head makes for a claustrophic
reading experience --- the reader comes away from this novel
knowing Anna deeply but longing for a little more understanding of
her husband and her children. Anna's painter's eye, though, lends a
beauty to all she sees, and the images of Camp Luna, which comes
alive only at night, are luminous and lovely.