Raven Stole the Moon: A Novel - Softcover

Stein, Garth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061806382 ISBN 13: 9780061806384

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2010

Synopsis

“Deeply moving, superbly crafted, and highly unconventional.” —Washington Times

Raven Stole the Moon is the stunning first novel from Garth Stein, author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain.

A profoundly poignant and unforgettable story of a grieving mother’s return to a remote Alaskan town to make peace with the loss of her young son, Raven Stole the Moon combines intense emotion with Native American mysticism and a timeless and terrifying mystery, and earned raves for a young writer and his uniquely captivating imagination.

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this remarkable novel “serves notice that Stein is a rare talent.”

About this title

Review

On impulse, Jenna Rosen leaves the party she and her real estate developer husband, Robert, are attending in Seattle, takes his BMW and drives north to Bellingham. Again on impulse, she hops on the ferry to the Alaskan town where her Tlingit Indian grandmother lived and died. But there's more than impulse at work here: Jenna and Robert's 5-year-old son, Bobby, drowned in Alaska just two years ago, and something is drawing Jenna back to the scene. On the ferry, she's given a carved silver charm of a Tlingit spirit called a kushtaka, a stealer of souls. "Tlingits don't have good and evil," a local shaman explains, telling the story of how the spirit known as Raven gave the world the sun, moon, and stars by stealing them from someone else. As Jenna learns more about the kushtakas, helped by this very sophisticated shaman and an understanding fisherman, she begins to believe that her son's soul is being held captive by these spirits, as revenge for her husband's greed. Garth Stein's persuasive prose draws us into a book that mixes fantasy with tragedy and the natural human desire for closure.

From the Back Cover

From the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain comes an extraordinary tale of grief, devotion, redemption, and timeless mystery.

When Jenna Rosen abandons her comfortable Seattle life to visit Wrangell, Alaska, it's a wrenching return to her past. The hometown of her Native American grandmother, Wrangell is located near the Thunder Bay Resort, where Jenna's young son, Bobby, disappeared two years before. His body was never recovered, and Jenna is determined to lay to rest the aching mystery of his death. But whispers of ancient legends begin to suggest a frightening new possibility about Bobby's fate, and Jenna must sift through the beliefs of her ancestors, the Tlingit, who still tell of powerful, menacing forces at work in the Alaskan wilderness. Armed with nothing but a mother's protective instincts, Jenna's quest for the truth behind her son's disappearance is about to pull her into a terrifying and life-changing abyss.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061806382
• ISBN 13: 9780061806384
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464