Book Review

The Burning Light of Two Stars by Laura Davis

Not only did I stay up late to cruise through this memoir, it’s still on my nightstand. To refer to. To read once more.

I first became aware of Laura Davis–the person, the teacher, the writer– late in the fall of 2021. Betsy Fasbinder Graziani, author and podcast host (The Morning Glory Project), invited me to a series of interviews she was doing with Laura about her new book,  The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother Daughter Story.  After the first episode when Laura shared the conflicted past she shared with her mother and her mother’s troubling health outlook, I shifted my calendar so as not to miss the next sessions. And I did what all of us do when we meet someone interesting, I researched Laura Davis and started following her on social media.

When Laura Davis wrote The Courage to Heal in 1988 with Ellen Bass, the two helped more than a million women work through the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. But Laura’s decision to go public with her grandfather’s incest deepened an already painful estrangement with her mother, Temme. Over the next twenty years, from a safe distance of three thousand miles, Laura and Temme reconciled their volatile relationship and believed that their difficult past was behind them. In The Burning Light of Two Stars, Temme moves across the country to entrust Laura to care for her. She brings with her a faltering mind, a fierce need for independence, and the seeds of a second war. 

Laura Davis is that accomplished writer who shares her innermost thoughts and deepest secrets with startling candor and finesse. When she peels back the significant moments of her life (and there are many), she displays them, unabashedly, in full color for all the world to examine. As I turned page after page of  The Burning Light of Two Stars, it was as if I was hovering over Laura’s shoulder as a privileged, unobtrusive observer. 

There are many lessons to extract from Laura’s brave book. For me, the most pertinent message was that every human has within them the power to forgive, a gift that affords the self to heal from unspeakable wounds, and which allows broken or damaged relationships to mend. Laura Davis goes one step further in this memoir. By drawing her life out so clearly upon the page, she challenges us to peer closer at our own lives, at our own damaged relationships. By her example, we are called to examine our faults and strengths, challenges and joys, and whether we possess the courage to repair brokenness.

ABOUT LAURA DAVIS

Laura Davis is the author of seven nonfiction books, including The Courage to Heal, Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, and I Thought We’d Never Speak Again. In addition to writing books that inspire and change people’s lives, the work of Laura’s heart is to teach. For more than twenty years, at locations around the world, she’s helped her students find their voices, tell their stories, and hone their craft as writers.

To learn about Laura’s classes and retreats, subscribe to her weekly prompts, visit Laura’s website.

You can immediately download her free e-book, “Writing Towards Courage: A Thirty Day Practice,” at: www.lauradavis.net/courage.

FOLLOW LAURA DAVIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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