The Lightning Field

2026

MaryFrank Sanborn

Reviewed by Julianne McCullagh

 

There comes a time in every life when all we thought was our safe and reliable reality falls away, and we have to make a choice between falling apart, starting over, or holding on to fragments of life that no longer fit.

The Lightning Field is such a story.

The novel opens on a rain-soaked day on the coastline of Maine. Clair sits alone on a rocky promontory at the edge of the ocean, the fog and rain covering her in an Atlantic storm. The fog is so thick that she has trouble seeing what’s in front of her.

She has built a beautiful home for herself and her husband, a retirement home, she thought. But that is not to be. Her husband phoned that morning, wanting a divorce, because the woman he had been having an affair with is pregnant. The same morning, her son called to tell her that she was soon to be a grandmother.

Her life is crashing like waves on a rocky shore. Everything she thought she had, thought she was, is gone.

Day after day can pass by without a ripple, then a butterfly

flaps its wings in China, and everything changes. A day

psychologists might speak of as “synchronous,” or astrologers

might explain in the predictive daily transits, but whatever plan

or non-plan, whether randomness or meaningful coincidence, it

was one of those days in time when events collide and nothing

is ever the same again.  Chapter 1

 

The Lightning Field is a coming-of-age story, of coming of middle age, that is, and fresh starts, of letting go of what no longer fits, what never really fit.

Clair has lived what she thought was a safe and sensible life. Married to wealthy man, a few children, a place in society. It looked good on paper. But there is a restlessness in her heart that is calling her to something else, something deeper.

On her drive home in the storm, she sees a sign for a place she has never noticed, a place to have tea leaves read. Since she is feeling so low, something she would have once disregarded as nonsense appeals to her.  She decides to give it a chance. Building on the fairy tale theme that develops over the course of the book, Clair meets Grace, a woman who tells her that her life is going to change, that she will be going on a trip that sets her on a new path.

Her oldest friend from childhood, Lucky, has asked her repeatedly over the years to come to her ranch in New Mexico. Clair always had excuses. But now, she is invited to Lucky’s 50th birthday celebration, and with her life emptied of friends, purpose, and a clear future she relents and joins them.

On the flight out West, Clair meets a handsome and intriguing stranger.  When the plane lands, Clair reaches for her luggage. It has mysteriously disappeared from the overhead compartment. Has the handsome stranger taken it?

She had carefully dressed for this trip to the desert in a refined Boston style: a white linen pant suit. In her luggage, she had changes of clothes, makeup, credit cards, and a driver’s license. Now, she has landed in the desert, and she can’t prove who she is.

Clair was reluctant to take this trip; now she longs to be back home in familiar surroundings.

Lucky has arranged a mystery destination for her birthday celebration. The group of five women has no idea where they are headed. They drive hundreds of miles out into the desert to The Lightning Field. A place so alien to Clair, she is sure this trip is a giant mistake.

Of course, in keeping with all good fairy tales, Clair remembers the cryptic message from Grace that her life is about to change. When she lands in the desert, she has nothing to rely on but her old friend and the women she has never met and can’t imagine being friends with. They, of course, fill the role of her new fairy godmothers.

From her luxurious East Coast life to a bare cabin in the desert, her transformation begins.

 

“The Demeter/Persephone myth is such a terrible one,” said

Jesse, “full of kidnapping, rape, and separation.”

“Yeah, but that’s actually the point of the story,” said Alex,

with growing excitement. “It’s only because of all those terrible

things that Kore, the girl, becomes her true self as a woman. The

difficulties had to happen because that’s her fuel. The oyster

needs the grit to make a pearl. Kore must be taken from the

mother, or the daughter will never become herself. It looks cruel,

but it’s necessary, psychologically, that is. The abduction and

going down into the dark Underworld are really a deepening

process. And, ladies, keep in mind, these are all metaphors.

We’re not saying that women need to be kidnapped and raped!

This is an inner process.”

Clair was trying to sort through these ideas…

P 123

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author has incorporated themes from mythology and familiar fairy tale motifs to progress this story of suffering that leads to transformation. The characters are well drawn and believable. It is a generally universal life experience that there are times in our life that we need to shed the life we had built and thought permanent and go through an intense journey of rediscovery, to find a new beginning. To those who can make the transition, difficult as it is, what seemed like tragedy can be turned into a new kind of blessing.

The Lightning Field is a great selection for a book club. It is easy to see women of a certain age reading this and sharing their own life stories with the accompaniment of wine and tortilla chips.