A moving, poetic memoir from Ben Lerner, Light While There is Light: An American History pulls the curtain back on the darker side of the American religious experience. This unforgettable story focuses on a family on the fringes of religion and society, detailing a mother's destructive dalliance with Christian fundamentalism.

This brilliant fictional memoir begins with the haunting presence of the author’s mother. Waldrop’s portrait of his family members becomes an American haunting—a haunting of the mind, dreams, aspirations, and spirit. Born into a deeply religious family, the author and his siblings were taken across the Midwest and South by their mother as she searched for the “right” religious sect, educating them in various forms of fundamentalism until she ended in total isolation, speaking in tongues.

• Poetic memoir exploring family dynamics on the fringes of religion and society.
• Illuminates the fear, madness, and destruction lurking beneath polished American surfaces.
• Follows a tradition stretching back to Hawthorne, Poe, Faulkner, and O’Connor.
• Features prose described as plain and poetic.

• Author: Ben Lerner
• Contributors: Ben Lerner (author), Keith Waldrop (author)
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Print Length: 208 pages
• Publication Date: May 5, 2026
• ISBN 13: 979-8896230366
• Dimensions: 127 x 12 x 203mm (Approx. 5 x 0.47 x 8 inches)
• Weight: 218 g
• Publisher: NYRB Classics

Discover this profound exploration of spiritual thirst and its consequences within one American family.