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"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."
So begins The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold's astonishing, brilliant, and daring new novel. A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this unforgettable work by the author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky.
For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined.
Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers; the meaning of devotion; and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page.
About the Author
Alice Sebold is the bestselling author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky: A Memoir. She lives in California with her husband, the novelist Glen David Gold.
Joan Allen fails to breathe sufficient life into Alice Sebold's second novel to make it worth the listen, but she really doesn't have much to work with. Helen Knightly, a divorced mother of two grown daughters, impulsively murders her 88-year-old mother, Claire. The story then flips back and forth between Helen's response to her present-day act and long flashbacks exploring her love/hate relationships with her emotionally volatile, agoraphobic mother and her suicidal, peculiarly obsessed father. Allen's calm, even voice makes Helen's most irrational actions (smothering her mother, cutting her clothes off, bathing her dead body and dragging it down to the basement) sound nearly as reasonable to listeners as they do to Helen. Allen also marvelously evokes the cracked, demented tones of Helen's aged mother. Unfortunately, the older Claire Knightly appears in only the smallest portion of the book, and Allen barely troubles to distinguish the voices of the other characters. Her unvarying voice, combined with the tediously introspective text, make this audio a real slog. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 27). (Sept.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Nina Evjen
reviewed The Almost Moon on September 10, 2013
The Almost Moon
I should preface this by saying that I have never read a book with an accumulative star rating this low before. It also confirms that star ratings are ridiculous - or maybe that one star ratings are compliments in disguise.
Can someone explain to me why a story has to have likable characters? Why someone who is clearly loosing it should act in a way a sane reader finds believable? I'm pretty sure when I read Fight Club I didn't think I would act that way... but she's a woman, so she has to be in fiction that can be quickly accessed and then resolved with a nice bow on top.
Let me be clear: this book is poisonous. It's hits hard, especially to anyone who understand complicated issues between mothers and daughters. But that's what it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be poisonous, it's supposed to disturb the reader and make us feel bad and I thought it was very well crafted.
To me, the character made perfect sense, and I even liked her as much as that is possible. She did the best she could for a long time and then she snapped and did something she couldn't take back. I thought the book depicted that situation beautifully.
Now, I have thing for Alice Sebold: I thought The Lovely Bones was good and entertaining, but my special interest is in those books that were generally described as disappointing, like Lucky and this one. Maybe her way of seeing the world just makes sense to me, and maybe that doesn't bode that well, but just because she describes the world out of the viewpoint from characters who may not fit exactly in the nice, uplifting story with a bow on top formula so predominant in so-called "women's fiction" doesn't mean it's bad writing.
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