The Almost Moon: A Novel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316677469 ISBN 13: 9780316677462

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2007

A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this brilliant, powerful, and unforgettable new novel 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, a novel, and Lucky, a memoir. She lives in California with her husband, the novelist Glen David Gold.

From AudioFile:

Listeners might be more easily absorbed into this brief lyrical novel were they not told in its opening sentences that the storyÕs narrator has just suffocated her rapidly deteriorating mother. From that point on, the story is told as a flashback involving an only child, a mentally ill mother, and a father who finally succeeds at suicide. Flashback requires reflection. Despite Joan AllenÕs more than adequate rendering, audio by nature pushes ahead, not leaving a lot of space between the words. Repetition and slight variation, two of SeboldÕs strong points on the page, become petty annoyances. New-age musical interludes between chapters are out of place with the tone of the novel. In this case, SeboldÕs excellent writing has to be read on the page to be fully appreciated. R.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine