My Face in the Light

Book excerpt: NAMED A "MOST ANTICIPATED" BOOK BY THE CBC AND THE GLOBE AND MAIL “Brilliant, provocative, and moving." —Johanna Skibsrud, Giller Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists "A novel like cut crystal." —Jordan Tannahill, Giller Prize-nominated author of The Listeners “My mother is an artist and I am a liar. Or, if I scratch the surface, my mother is a sick woman and I am an actress . . . " Justine feels uneasy in her marriage, her theatre career and her relationship with her estranged mother, a famous painter. An intuitive and uncanny mimic, distinguished by a pronounced scar across her forehead (the result of a childhood accident), Justine has made acting the centre of her life since she was a teenager, but lately her outwardly charmed life in Toronto has begun to ring false. After a disastrous audition in London, England, a chance encounter with a stranger leads to an unorthodox business proposition that would allow Justine to abandon the world she knows indefinitely. As the complications and contradictions of leaving a life behind swell to the point of crisis, Justine must confront the collateral damage of a traumatic, long-repressed past. In psychologically astute prose full of provocative insights, My Face in the Light is a piercing, poignant novel about truth in art and identity. It’s the story of a young woman owning up to the lies she’s fallen in love with, and figuring out if she can still recognize herself when she finally lets them go.