The Story

He went down into the dark
with twenty-six candles — and counted them.

For thirteen years Amel Bruns shoveled coal in the dark under a San Francisco theatre and never once said the thing that needed saying to Clara. Then the Alaska mines came hiring, and he went north — eight hundred feet down into the Alaska–Juneau with twenty-six candles, where a candle makes a room the size of a man's two open hands, and the dark stands all around it and waits. A thousand miles away, Clara lit a candle of her own — quietly, in a way he did not know about and could not have asked for.

Two Small Lights, One Large Dark

Eight hundred feet of rock and
a thousand miles of water apart.

“This is the story of a man who went down into the dark with twenty-six candles and counted them. It is also the story of a woman who stayed up in the light and lit a candle for him anyway — quietly, on her own, in a way he did not know about and could not have asked for. Each was keeping a small light going against a large dark. Each was spending something to do it.”

— From the prologue

The Author

Thomas P. Skinner

Tom Skinner writes Alaska the way it actually is — hard, quiet, and shot through with the things men carry and never say. In When the Candles Go Out he takes the real bones of Juneau's Alaska–Juneau mine and the winter of 1936 and writes the confession a whole generation of hard men took to the grave.

Written and carved in Juneau, Alaska — where the mountains still keep their secrets.

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The First Pages

Read the opening.

Prologue

A candle is a small thing.

It is tallow, or it is wax, formed around a wick. It costs a few cents. A man can carry a box of them under one arm. A man does not think about a candle when he has electric light. He thinks about a candle only when the light is gone — and then he thinks about nothing else.

A candle throws a light that reaches a little way and no farther. It does not push the dark back. It only makes a small room inside the dark, about the size of a man's two open hands, and the dark stands all around that room and waits.

And a candle does not last. That is the truth of a candle. It gives its light by spending itself. It is using itself up the whole time it is being watched.

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Like the opening? The whole book is one tap away.

It is the story of what was still burning
after the last of them had gone out.

Winter, 1936. Eight hundred feet down. A man, his candles, and the truth he waited a lifetime to say.

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He went down into the darkwith twenty-six candles — and counted them.

Eight hundred feet of rock anda thousand miles of water apart.