The Luminist

August 15, 2011
Rocklin’s debut novel, a case of style over content, was inspired by Julia Margaret Cameron’s work in the new field of photography in the 19th century. Catherine Colebrook travels to Ceylon to join her husband, who has a government position there during a period of increasing strife between the British rulers and the local population. Catherine arrives in Ceylon, having buried one of her twin boys in England, and part of her fascination with the burgeoning art of photography is tied to her desire to hold onto him. She is fascinated by the possibilities photography offers: “Aspects that were daily lost to careless memory might still be found...” and begins a correspondence with Sir John Holland, a scientist on the same exploratory journey, which upsets her husband and causes disdain and shunning within the colonial community. When a young local boy, Eligius Shourie, whose father was killed by British soldiers in Catherine’s presence, is taken in as a servant, he soon shares Catherine’s passion for photography. But he is torn between his growing loyalty to Catherine and the demands made on him by the villagers who want him to join them in sabotaging the British. The book is beautifully written, especially the scenes where Eligius works with Catherine in her experiments, while scenes of escalating political unrest and the impossibility of either side finding a reasonable solution to their differences are less effective, even if historically accurate. The supporting characters, in contrast to Catherine and Eligius, lack dimension. . If Rocklin plays to his strengths, he will be a writer to watch.

October 1, 2011
An absolute spellbinder. In Victorian-era Ceylon, amidst colonial strife and natural splendor, taboo love unfolds. Debut novelist Rocklin blends the love-and-war sweep of Dr. Zhivago with the Heart of Darkness depth of Joseph Conrad. Fictionalizing the bio of 19th-century photographic innovator Julia Margaret Cameron, he creates, in Catherine Colebrook, an artist-as-mystic. "I brought forth the holy. I made light stop," she marvels as she develops her portraits, luminous in beauty and far in technical advance of European (male) lensmen. As sorcerer's apprentice, Eligius, the family's 15-year old Tamil servant, not only facilitates her work but is compelled into a dangerous fascination with the Colebrooks—Catherine, his mother figure and aesthetic soul mate, daughter Julia, a Pre-Raphaelite lovely he adores from afar, and father, Charles, an aging, ailing imperialist functionary whose good heart but weak spirit moves and confounds him. The danger is psychologically and politically complex. His own father murdered for seeking Ceylonese rights, Eligius fears that, while Colebrook kindness melts his rage at everything Brit, his tenderness toward this foreign family may betray his native soul. His bond, too, with Catherine may further imperil her marriage, as Charles already dismisses her art. And when an arrogant English artist begins courting Julia, Eligius simmers. If Rocklin crafts plot with a Homeric "what'll-happen-next" intensity, he's also a prose poet. From his deftly evocative chapter titles—"The Night, Moving," "Thirty Breaths"—to his painterly eye (cloth described as "white as blanched bone, soft")—he's capable not just of beauty but of aphorism: "Even God was born of fury at cold, at death, at what was always lost." History, art, celebratory feminism, rapturous writing and true suspense— this is a staggeringly good book.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)