As Bright As Heaven

As Bright as Heaven (2018) is a historical fiction novel by American author Susan Meissner. Meissner, a USA Today best-selling author, has written 27 novels that frequently garner critical praise and appear on popular book lists. As Bright as Heaven received a starred review from Library Journal, which noted the “balanced tone of sorrow” (Panik, Tina. “As Bright as Heaven.” Library Journal, 1 Dec. 2017). Over two different time periods, 1918-1919 and 1925-1926, the novel follows the fortunes of the Bright family, who run a funeral parlor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the 1918 influenza (or “Spanish flu”) pandemic and take in an orphaned child. Six years later, still coping with the aftermath of war and disease, the family faces a reckoning when people they thought lost resurface, but through care, resilience, and mutual support, each of the three Bright sisters finds a way to move forward, proving that joy can follow terrible loss.

This guide refers to the hardcover first edition published by Berkley in 2018.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, child death, suicidal ideation, and substance use.

Language Note: The source material uses the word “asylum” in reference to Fairview Asylum. This guide retains use of the word for historical accuracy.

Plot Summary

In January 1918, Pauline and Thomas Bright move their family from rural Quakertown, Pennsylvania, to bustling Philadelphia. The family is still grieving the loss of a child, their son Henry, who died of a weak heart. They have three daughters: Evelyn, who is 15; Margaret, or “Maggie,” who is 12; and Willa, who is six. Thomas’s uncle, Fred Bright, runs a funeral parlor and hopes that Thomas will take over the business. Pauline is interested in helping in the embalming room; she feels that death has become her spectral companion since she lost Henry. The girls settle into their new schools and make new friends, including the Sutcliffs, who live across the street. Charlie Sutcliff, 15, is sweet and friendly, and Jamie Sutcliff, 21, captures Maggie’s interest. Jamie helps Maggie with her algebra homework before he leaves to join the Army, feeling that it his duty to enlist. Maggie is glad to get letters from him when he is stationed in France.

That autumn, Thomas volunteers for the medical corps and leaves for training. Pauline worries about the influenza pandemic reaching his compound. The city holds a parade to raise funds for the war, and in the days after, thousands of people become sick with the flu. Schools, churches, and businesses close. Fred works to exhaustion as the death count climbs, and the house can barely contain all the bodies. Pauline talks to her mother about returning to Quakertown until the pandemic passes, but her mother fears that they will bring the flu to the family.

Pauline agrees to take food to sick people, and Maggie goes with her. In an immigrant neighborhood, Maggie finds a baby crying in a house; his mother is dead in the bedroom, and his older sister looks to be dying, too. Maggie brings the baby to her mother but pretends that she cannot locate the house where she found him. She hopes that the Brights will be able to keep the child, who reminds Maggie of Henry. They shelter the baby while Pauline nurses Willa through the flu.

Willa recovers, but Pauline becomes ill. Thomas returns from training in time to say goodbye before his wife passes. The family is devastated. Charlie and Uncle Fred die the same night, and the family has a quiet funeral for all three of them. When the flu pandemic recedes and the girls return to school, they are confronted with news of all their friends and classmates who have died. The baby, whom they name Alex, is their one joy amid the tragedy.

The war ends, and an armistice is signed, but Jamie is a changed man when he returns. In June 1919, Willa sees him leaving home, and he cannot say where he is going. Maggie is bereft.

Six years later, in the fall of 1925, Maggie is helping her father in the embalming room. She is engaged to a young man named Palmer. Evelyn is pursuing her residency as a doctor of psychiatry and works at Fairview Asylum. She meets a woman her age, Sybil Reese, who has dementia and has been brought to the facility by her husband, Conrad. Willa, who is 14, is drawn by the sound of music she hears from an underground speakeasy and takes a job singing there, pretending she is 18.

When Palmer takes a job in Manhattan, New York, he proposes to Maggie, who asks to bring Alex with them. The whole family is attached to the boy, but Maggie feels almost like his mother. The family is surprised and pleased when Jamie returns home after years away. Maggie realizes that he has kept every letter she wrote to him.

Evelyn treats a young woman, Ursula, who was brought to the asylum after trying to hang herself. She learns that the girl’s family thinks that when Ursula had the flu, she drowned her baby brother, Leo, in the Delaware River. When Ursula mentions a birthmark that Leo possessed, Evelyn realizes that Leo is Alex. She runs to a shed on the asylum grounds to have a moment alone. Conrad follows, asking if Evelyn is all right, and they embrace.

When Evelyn tells Maggie and her father what they learned, they realize that they must reunite Alex with his birth father and grandparents. Maggie is devasted at losing Alex. She asks Jamie why he kept her letters, and when Jamie explains how her letters kept him alive during difficult years, Maggie realizes that she can’t marry Palmer; she still loves Jamie. Evelyn, while glad to help reunite Ursula and Leo, is distressed to learn that Conrad is taking his wife, who has dementia, home; Evelyn realizes that she is in love with Conrad.

Willa keeps her singing a secret from the family, even when a raid closes her speakeasy, the Silver Swan. When Alex goes to live with his birth family, the Brights do their best to carry on. Maggie breaks her engagement with Palmer. Evelyn tells Conrad how she feels and learns that he loves her, too. Then, Alex’s father, Cal, visits to ask the Brights if they would take Alex back. Cal realizes that Alex doesn’t know or trust his birth family, but he loves the Brights. Alex and Ursula both come to live with the Brights, and with Maggie courting Jamie, Evelyn married to Conrad, and Willa singing, all the members of the family have found a way to keep moving toward happiness despite tremendous loss.