Short summary: In the spirit of Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner, THE LUMINIST is literary with a  compelling, character-driven story-- a page-turning novel about politics, war, art, and family that will linger in your memory long after you’ve reached the last page.

Publisher’s summary: In colonial India, at a time of growing friction between the ruling British and the restless Indian populace, a Victorian English woman and her young Tamil Indian servant defy convention, class, and heartbreak to investigate what is gained - and lost - by holding life still. Suggested by the life and work of photographic pioneer Julia Margaret Cameron (who lived much her life in Ceylon and died with her husband there), The Luminist filters 19th century Ceylon through the lens of Catherine Colebrook (a fictionalized Cameron) and a 15 year old Tamil boy, Eligius Shourie.   Left fatherless by soldiers, Eligius is brought as a servant to the Colebrooks' neglected estate. Despite their mutual suspicion, Eligius is taken in by the Colebrooks and becomes a trusted member of their household, particularly by Catherine, the wife and mother of the family's two girls, bonding over their mutual fascination with the burgeoning art of photography.   In the shadow of Catherine's obsession to arrest beauty - to select a moment from the thousands comprising her life in Ceylon and hold it apart from mere memory - Eligius transforms into her apprentice in the creation of the first haunting photographs in history.   As Eligius becomes her apprentice in the studio, the situation in his village is deteriorating and on visits home he is put in the impossible position of supporting his mother and the people he grew up with, and violating the trust of the family who has become as close to him as his own. Ultimately belonging to neither world, he is forced into an impossible choice that will shape his destiny and those of the people he loves most.

David Rocklin is an attorney who lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, recently adopted from China.  He is at work on his next novel.

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