A Certain Light
A Memoir of Family, Loss and Hope
With great courage and empathy, Cynthia Banham asks the difficult questions about family, about survival, and fearlessly tells the stories that are never told.
‘Life is not defined by the bad things that happen to us. It certainly isn't for me.'
Written for her young son so that he would know what had happened to his mother, Cynthia Banham's inspiring family memoir uncovers a true picture of what survival means:
'This book tells a story that I tried to write many times before, but couldn't. For a long time, it was too painful to tell. It is also one I hadn't known how to tell. It had to be more than a story about surviving a plane crash, a random event without intrinsic meaning.'
Unable until now to write her own story, Cynthia found that the lives of her Italian grandfather, Alfredo, and his intriguing older sister, Amelia, resonated with her own. Discovering their sacrifice, joy, fear and love, from Trieste to Germany and America, and finally to Australia, their stories mirror and illuminate Cynthia's own determination and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity.
From a remarkable writer, and told with unflinching honesty and compassion, A Certain Light speaks to the heart of what really matters in life.
Reviews
‘A Certain Light is a deeply literary memoir which lifts the genre to a higher level. Banham's study of the complex responses to great life-shaping tragedies is revealing and inspiring. Surviving a horrific plane crash which leaves her severely and permanently disabled is, as it turns out, one of the many challenges in her life. This shattering traumatic event and its aftermath provide the lens and focus to examine her multidimensional life and enables her to work through her complicated and difficult relationship with her mother and her God. There is catharsis in re-examining her life and history in consequence of these transformative events. A Certain Light is a sharp, unflinching account of being human, for the plane crash removed all artifice and stripped away from her former layers of politeness. This is an unusual memoir in which the author is prepared to reveal her vulnerability, her constant and unrelenting pain, physical, emotional and even spiritual. More than a standard autobiography, this is an exposure of her inner self, as she re-examines her family through the prism of trauma and its lasting legacy.’
PM’s Literary Awards
‘The stories she tells are extraordinary in their Australian ordinariness. They reflect: “the tragedies and ruptures of the 20th century”. What is remarkable about Banham’s memoir is how she uses the shared traumas of the past as a portal to the future, to find: “solace in the continuum of time”.'
Banham does not hide the profound grief, distress and scope of her loss, nor its shame. “I experienced the 2007 plane crash as a kind of failure, something I must have brought upon myself.”
As her book progresses, she is able to circle closer and closer to the event itself, to stare at the sun. The account she tenders is harrowing but clear-eyed. “Some of this will not make easy reading for you,” she warns her son. “But there is a cost when parents don’t talk to their children about the past because it is too difficult, or to spare them.”
The inheritance Banham is determined to leave is not sorrow, but resilience anchored in a profound and fierce love.
As A Certain Light powerfully attests, this was her inheritance, too.’
The Australian
‘There's one word that keeps coming to mind about Cynthia Banham's memoir: searing. And then others follow soon after, describing the woman one meets in it: soul-searching, determined, logical, very proud but unpretentious and a fine writer.’
The Sydney Morning Herald
‘A Certain Light reconciles the woman she was before the plane crash with the woman who writes this text. Banham explores the fragility of memory and the shared longing to know the stories of family members who can no longer speak, or perhaps do not want to.
“Memory is fluid, malleable, untrustworthy”, Banham writes, yet ultimately it’s memory that has created her narrative, her identity reclaimed from trauma. A Certain Light is a reminder that despite even the greatest tragedy, time moves on and there is light in the darkness — if we choose to see it.’
The Conversation
Category: Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
ISBN: 9781760632106
Awards: Shortlisted, Non-fiction Book of the Year - Prime Minister's Literary Awards, 2019, AU
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
