Today in the ArtZany Radio studio Paula Granquist welcomes novelist Peter Geye to discuss A Lesser Light. Set on the rocky shores of Lake Superior at the turn of the 20th century, this is the story of Theodulf, a master lighthouse keeper, and his new wife Willa, a well-educated young woman and a reluctant bride with her eyes to the night sky. The book explores how selfhood and determinism develops: is the future what we’re handed or what we make of it?
Peter Geye Reading from A Lesser Light and Conversation with Northfield writer Benjamin Percy on Wednesday, 23 April 2025 at 7 pm at Content Bookstore, 314 Division Street, Northfield
It’s 1910, and Theodulf Sauer has finally achieved a position befitting his ego: master lighthouse keeper at a newly commissioned station towering above Lake Superior. When his new wife, Willa, arrives on the first spring ferry, it’s clear her life has taken the opposite turn: after being summoned home from college to Duluth when her father dies, she and her scheming mother find themselves destitute, and Willa is rushed into this ill-suited arranged marriage before she can comprehend her fate.
As the lighthouse station establishes, the new relationship teeters between tense and hostile, with little mutual understanding or tenderness. Willa takes solace in her learned fascination with the cosmos, especially (despite her husband’s suspicion of the event) in viewing the imminent Halley’s Comet. Under ominous night skies, Theodulf stands sentry over the lake, clinging to long-ago and faraway memories of happiness that fill him with longing and shame.
Into this impasse, a clairvoyant girl and her resolute uncle emerge from across the cove. They see through the Sauers’ thin façade and, by turns and in different ways, convey promise, sympathy, and insight that counter Willa’s despair. Armed with renewed self-determination, Willa forges a path to happiness. But before she can grasp it, tragedy comes to their remote beacon, and her future plunges toward a dark unknown.
Set against a brooding and beautiful landscape, A Lesser Light is a story about industry and calamity, science versus superstition, patriarchy’s corrosive power—and the consequences when these forces collide in the wilderness of rapid social change.
Peter Geye is the award-winning author of Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, Wintering, Northernmost, and The Ski Jumpers (Minnesota, 2022). He lives in Minneapolis with his family.
Benjamin Percy has won a Whiting Award, a Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and the iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast. He is the author of the novels THE NINTH METAL, THE UNFAMILIAR GARDEN, THE DARK NET, THE DEAD LANDS, RED MOON, and THE WILDING; three story collections; and an essay collection, THRILL ME. He also writes Wolverine and X-Force for Marvel Comics. He lives in Minnesota with his family.
