DM: Did anyone in your family make it into the book? Like, does your relationship with your wife have anything to do with Emily?
SB: Well, not really. I mean, Amy doesn’t have HIV, and she’s not dying or anything. And remember, I’d started writing the book before I met Amy, and by the time I really knew Amy, the character of Emily was pretty solidified. I remember the first time Amy came over to my apartment, there was a draft of the book on the windowsill. She’s really critical about literature, and apparently she peeked at the first page when I wasn’t in the room. Later on she said she was relieved because she’d decided I was a good writer, and if I wasn’t, she knew it wouldn’t work out between us.
DM: Nice.
SB: Yeah, romance.
DM: So. One last question. Though maybe this should have been the first question. Safelight. The title. What were you thinking?
SB: It’s the light that doesn’t expose the film in the darkroom. It’s the place where Frank can look at this gruesome stuff without it having any effect. You know, he has this memory of his father, he doesn’t want to think about it or talk about it, but he goes into this darkroom, turns on the red light, and he can sort of experience it without having it totally overwhelm him. It’s the safe representation, the echo, of what he felt. It’s the first step toward him dealing with it. I think that was my idea. But remember, the original title was The Darkroom. It was that for a long time. And it was a long time before I decided that Safelight was the right title.
DM: Safelight’s infinitely better. To me it makes ten times more sense on every level. The Darkroom is a bit bleak, which is exactly what you don’t want. That’s where you start, but that’s not where you finish, and that’s not what the book is about.
SB: Well, I hope that’s true.
DM: Looking back, and now that it’s done, out of your hands, the errors are there, you can’t fix it, can’t change it, it’s out there for all of mankind to peruse for eternity, are there things about it you’d change or that you’re not satisfied with?
SB: There are definitely lines that I think could have been better written. There are places where I used the same word twice on the same page. There are one or two scenes that I might have taken out. But in general I’m happy with the book, though I do wish I was a better writer when I wrote it.
DM: Oh, come on, man.
SB: But I’m not saying I’m displeased. I feel good about the book. I think it says what I wanted it to say. I’m proud of it.
DM: Well, you should be. You captured the emotional nature of the job better than anything else I’ve ever seen written. I mean, what people like us went through, and how people really reacted.
SB: Rather than perpetuating the myth?
DM: Yeah, exactly. Catch the baby from the burning window—that sort of bullshit. For me, the book captures exactly what it’s like to work as an EMT in a place like New York. It’s not something I’ve seen anywhere else.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
The name Frank draws attention to the narrator’s dogged insistence on telling the truth. It also relates to his photographic subject matter and the world in which he lives. Reflect further upon the name Frank as it illuminates his character and response to life. In addition, discuss possible meanings of other characters’ names. For example, how might Emily’s last name, Pascal, add richness to your understanding of her circumstances and choices? Discuss the names of other central characters, such as Norman, Hock, and Burnett, and how the names might shed light on what these people mean to Frank and on the larger issues raised by the novel.
Frank’s troubled relationship with his brother, Norman, is a thread running through the novel. Develop a portrait of Norman’s childhood, his relationship with Frank and his father, his decision to become a surgeon, and the quality of his present life. How does Norman feel about Frank? What does Frank want from Norman? Discuss how their relationship evolves in the novel. Near the end of the novel, Frank decides not to tell Norman that his father would have wanted to see him. Does this deliberate omission suggest that Frank continues to resent his brother or that he has hope for their relationship?
Frank seeks acceptance and approval from Norman, but also from other men in his life. Compare Burnett to Norman. Compare Hock to Norman.
Certain characters function as wisdom figures for Frank. What life lessons does Frank learn from the Tylenol patient, the blind man, the burned man, Bontecou, and other characters?
Gil Hock is a paradoxical character. On the one hand, he is a corrupting influence on Frank, and on the other hand, he is a benevolent advisor and friend. To what extent do Hock’s contradictions mirror untenable contradictions in Frank’s own moral perspective?
The descriptive passages chronicling industrial waste and urban decay create an apocalyptic landscape of despair. Against this backdrop, the reader expects to read about illness, death, corruption, and brutality. It is surprising that the narrator discovers and preserves beauty within this world. Cite particular vignettes in which beauty arises from the grotesque, and compare those instances in order to identify common origins and expressions of beauty in the novel.
In the novel, urban industrial settings are contrasted with natural settings. Emily describes natural beauty as “hollow” (p. 184). Does Frank respond to natural beauty in the same way Emily does? What seems to be missing from natural beauty for both Emily and Frank? Where does beauty lie for each of them?
Repeatedly, Frank describes himself as being ashamed. What is Frank ashamed of, and how does he respond to his shame?
What role does the subject of suicide play in the novel? How do the suicides that Frank witnesses as a paramedic relate to his own experience of having witnessed the aftermath of his father’s suicide? Is Frank suicidal? By the end of the novel, has Frank embraced life or is he still “on the edge”?
0. How do you respond to the portraits of paramedics, policemen, and doctors in this novel? Does viewing the protectors and healers of society as corrupt and flawed cause you to feel anxiety, revulsion, or hostility toward society, or toward the novel itself?
1. Explain why Frank becomes involved in the first and subsequent drug deals. How does his decision to become involved in crimes make you feel about him? Do you hold him responsible or view him as a victim?
2. Hock wants Frank’s photographs for his own gain, but he also seems to understand and appreciate Frank’s obsession. What does Hock seek in the photographs?
3. Analyze Frank’s motives in creating the pictures. How do the photographs provide Frank with a medium for processing his experience? Is Frank an artist or a journalist? How do the descriptions of Frank’s photographs function in the novel? Are they gratuitous? How do the photographs change as the novel goes on?
4. Trace the evolution of Frank’s approach to his photographs. Does he develop as an artist or does he sacrifice his artistic integrity in order to survive in the world?
5. When Frank finally photographs Emily, near the end of her life, he knows that he has taken a portrait of “something beautiful” (p. 192). What beautiful thing has Frank seen and recorded for others to see?
6. By the end of the novel, to what extent has Frank found safety and light? Connect the term “safelight” from photography with Frank’s search for meaning.
7. In a novel in which the narrator is chronically inarticulate, the wisdom figures are corrupt and coercive, and the images are horrifying and tragic, is it appropriate to reach for a higher meaning or theme? If you could speak for (or to) Frank, how would you phrase a central theme for this novel?
8. Ultimately, what is the tone of the novel—that is, does the author speak in a voice of hope or a voice of despair? Does Frank grow as a human being or deteriorate? Does Emily’s spirit live on (as she wants to believe) or is her death (and her separation from Frank) final? Is Frank and Emily’s doomed love affair evidence of the tenacity of the human condition or of its fragility? Are Frank’s photographs an act of creat
ive renewal or expressions of life’s futility?
SHANNON BURKE is a novelist and screenwriter. Before moving to his current home in Knoxville, he worked as a paramedic in Harlem and lived in Chicago, Chapel Hill, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Mexico. Safelight is his first novel.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2005 Random House Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2004 by Shannon Burke
Reading group guide copyright © 2005
by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon
are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Burke, Shannon.
Safelight: a novel / Shannon Burke.
p. cm.
1. Young men—Fiction. 2. Terminally ill—Fiction.
3. Fathers—Death—Fiction. 4. Harlem (New York, N.Y.)—
Fiction. 5. Emergency medical technicians—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.U7555S34 2004
813’.6—dc22 2003069549
www.atrandom.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-43173-8
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