Overview

In 1874, the acclaimed photographer Eadweard Muybridge—famed for capturing the first motion image of a galloping horse—shot and killed his wife’s lover, Major Harry Larkyns. In what became known as the trial of the century, Muybridge was acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide. His much younger wife, Flora, died less than a year later, leaving behind a son, Florado—whose paternity was in question and whose future would be shaped by silence, shame, and abandonment. In Light and Shadow, Candida Baker weaves fact and fiction into a moving, multilayered novel that explores the emotional legacy of this infamous Victorian scandal. Narrated by Rosa Maria de Martinez—Florado’s imagined daughter—the story unfolds as Rosa embarks on a lifelong search to piece together her hidden family history. Her journey takes her from Mexico to the United States, and finally to Australia’s Snowy Mountains, where her love of horses and connection to the land offer a chance at healing. Told as a letter to a younger friend, Light and Shadow is a meditation on love, loss, betrayal and resilience. As Rosa brings to life the imagined voices of Eadweard, Flora and Harry, she also confronts her own wounds—of abandonment, shame, and unspoken grief. Alongside Muybridge’s groundbreaking photography, which serves as a visual metaphor for the novel’s emotional terrain, Baker offers a profound reflection on how women survive the shadows of their past—and where they find the light.

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9781923236356

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Reviews

No one writes about 'the immigrant's malaise, the strange uncertainty of constant, inevitable yearning..' better than Candida Baker. Every migrant or reader temporarily bereft of a place of belonging will find understanding in the stories she weaves of those whose wanderlust or fates finds them far from home. Also the solace that, if the vulnerability (particularly for women) doesn't kill them, another tribe and place will ultimately find them. Rachel WardThe vision for Candida Baker's Light and Shadow remains as important now as it did two hundred years ago for Flora Shallcross Stone: to bring to light from shadow the sovereign voices of women across the ages, and to keep alive all conversations and stories that seek to rebalance the presence of females in history and to reignite the often-wavering but bright creative female spark. Sally Colin-James, author of One Illumined ThreadLight and Shadow is the most intimate of novels, a book to be kept on your bedside table. Baker's power and truth as a describer of women's longing, desire and sexual love is second to none. She is truly a literary descendant of Marguerite Duras. Sue Woolfe

Author Information

Candida Baker is a writer, editor, photographer, journalist and natural horsemanship practitioner.

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