Pitch letter for Nightlight: editors and producers

(This is my publisher's pitch letter)

Dear Editor or Producer,

Finally, a fresh — but preternaturally wise — literary voice, and a singularly compelling life story, have arrived to churn up the doldrums of the memoir genre. With NIGHTLIGHT, Janine Avril has made a memorable authorial debut, casting light on an element of the American experience that, till now, was unacknowledged.

Janine’s childhood is, for a time, an idyllic one. She grows up in the affluent Manhattan suburb of Roslyn, NY, where she is cared for by a devoted mother; fights innocently with a rascally little brother; and can look up to her father, a French immigrant who, through hard work, fought his way from homelessness to become a leading chef in Manhattan. But the inscrutable, premature, and seemingly unrelated deaths of both her parents overturn the otherwise happy situation in which she is being raised. Their ends remain veiled by secrets and lies, told by family members for her protection, as a nightlight is placed to make a child feel safe in the dark. A telephone call from her uncle, years later, flips off the nightlight, forcing the recognition of what really happened to her parents. Like Oedipus, Janine commences an unrelenting search for the entire truth about her past, no matter how startling it may be. She learns that all through her father’s life he was harboring a furtive attraction to men — and that her parents, most certainly her father, died of AIDS. These revelations are particularly jarring as Janine questions her own sexuality. Another quest must then begin — this time for self-knowledge, inner peace, and forgiveness — and it is ultimately successful.

The appeal of NIGHTLIGHT reaches into dimly lit corners of America. It speaks for AIDS orphans (charting new territory in that regard). It gives solace and the gift of identification to wives who learn of their husbands’ homosexuality, to the children of those men, and to the men them-selves. It is a blueprint of bereavement. But NIGHTLIGHT’s appeal is also universal, for, at its core, it is about the family, about the rearing of sons and daughters, about growing up, and about the things we do to protect people we love.

NIGHTLIGHT, by Janine Avril, is slated for a September release.