3.5
Ordinary Light
ByPublisher Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • This dazzling memoir from the former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Life on Mars is the story of a young artist struggling to fashion her own understanding of belief, loss, history, and what it means to be black in America.
"Engrossing in its spare, simple understatement.... Evocative ... luminous." —The Washington Post
In Ordinary Light, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith tells her remarkable story, giving us a quietly potent memoir that explores her coming-of-age and the meaning of home against a complex backdrop of race, faith, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and daughter.
"Engrossing in its spare, simple understatement.... Evocative ... luminous." —The Washington Post
In Ordinary Light, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith tells her remarkable story, giving us a quietly potent memoir that explores her coming-of-age and the meaning of home against a complex backdrop of race, faith, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and daughter.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesOrdinary Light Reviews
3.5
“2.5 stars rounded down
I did not realize this was memoir when I picked it up. So I was a little surprised. However, though the writing is beautiful, I don't really feel like I got to know Smith very well. It felt like she didn't really focus on the events of her life but rather her feelings growing up which some times made the book seem really slow. There were so many tangents that sometimes I read a paragraph and would not remember the original point.
I wished the book had focused a little more on her relationship with her mother. This seems more a coming of age novel rather than a novel about how her mother's death shaped her.
Overall, I think Tracy had a very ordinary life which is more rare for black people during her childhood, but it also made it very hard to care about her problems which were just normal problems everyone else faces. I thought it would resonant more with me since I also lost my mother at a young age but I did not connect with the text.”
About Tracy K. Smith
TRACY K. SMITH is the United States Poet Laureate. She is the author of four acclaimed books of poetry, including Wade in the Water and Life on Mars, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a New Yorker, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. A professor of creative writing at Princeton University, she lives in Princeton with her family.
Other books by Tracy K. Smith
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
