Fitzpatrick does so many things right in Lights All Night Long, it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel. As a mystery, it’s paced perfectly, with the novel moving seamlessly back and forth in time between Ilya’s life in Russia and his new one in America. Fitzpatrick proves to be an expert at building suspense; it’s hard not to read the book in a single sitting. She also avoids falling into well-worn tropes or clichés of fiction ... Similarly, Fitzpatrick treats the blossoming relationship between Ilya and Sadie with admirable realism ... It’s tricky to capture the specific, sometimes difficult language that brothers use to let each other know they care, but Fitzpatrick manages to do so perfectly, and it makes their relationship all the more beautiful and affecting ... an expertly crafted mystery and a dazzling debut from an author who’s truly attuned to how families work at their darkest moments.
...[a] formidably accomplished debut novel ... Los Angeles-based Fitzpatrick sharply examines the cheapness of life while at the same time flagging up and homing in on various redemptive riches, from brotherly bonds to cross-cultural relations to the pursuit of justice ... Few debut novels are so tightly plotted and powerfully written.
Lights All Night Long is that rare work of fiction that gathers page-turning momentum from its prose as much as its plot. Fitzpatrick’s writing, accessible yet exquisite, relies on surgically precise metaphors for a lot of heavy emotional lifting ... Darkly beautiful, melancholic but not bleak, Lights All Night Long is storytelling at its finest. Fitzpatrick has written a compelling novel full of intimately portrayed, easy-to-love characters whose spoiled joys and resurgent hopes will linger with readers.
...solid and deliberate. Its chapters, set alternatingly in Russia and America, carry its mysterious plot to a satisfying resolution like an army of obedient soldiers following orders ... The writing is often masterly, and contains vivid details ... But Fitzpatrick is so fond of narrative symmetry, neat metaphors and redundant parallels that her characters, caged in these airtight constructions, fail to come alive ... Her true passion is the fictional Berlozhniki, and she erects a perfect model of this dysfunctional Russian town ... Unfortunately, Fitzpatrick seems so concerned with the integrity of her setting, so preoccupied with finding for it the right shade of darkness, that she manipulates its inhabitants like plastic figures in an architectural model ... solid yet unaffecting.
Vladimir is in prison for the murders of three women. Ilya doesn’t believe Vladimir’s confession, though, and his time in the U.S. is quickly overtaken by...his private search to uncover the true killer. This mystery drives the novel, as Fitzpatrick reconstructs Ilya’s life in dramatically inhospitable Berlozhniki ... Beyond the brothers’ crystalline characterizations, Fitzpatrick gifts her intriguing debut with elegant prose, affecting images, and rich settings.
...[a] glittering debut ... The murder mystery is intricate and well-crafted, but the highlight is the relationship between the two brothers ... This is a heartbreaking novel about the lengths to which people go to escape their own pain, and the prices people are willing to pay to alleviate the suffering of their loved ones.
