The Almost Moon
by Alice Sebold
Novel
Alice Sebold is the author of a memoir, Lucky, which revisited her rape as a college student, and of the widely read, much loved novel The Lovely Bones, which was narrated by the victim of a brutal attack as she looked down from heaven on her survivors. Now Sebold’s back with her third book, and second novel, The Almost Moon, another queasily compelling, unconventionally uplifting work from a gifted if uneven writer who once called herself “motivated to write about violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see it as just a part of life, and I think we get in trouble when we separate people who've experienced it from those who haven't."
The central act of violence in The Almost Moon is revealed early on, in the first paragraph, when the narrator, Helen Knightly, says, “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. Dementia, as it descends, has a way of revealing the core of the person affected by it. My mother’s core was rotten like the brackish water at the bottom of a weeks-old vase of flowers.�?nbsp; From Helen’s impulsive act of murder rooted in a lifetime of bitterness, the novel’s action unfolds over the course of the next twenty-four hours. As Helen searches for a way to evade, or simply cope with, the consequences of her crime, she revisits her bond with her troubled parents and its effects on her subsequent relationships.
The Almost Moon is about family ties, mental illness, and the perhaps all-too-human urge to destroy the bossy, carping shrew who brought you life—the dramatization of which gives Sebold her best lines (“Had I killed the only person who, in comparison, made me appear sane?�?. The Almost Moon is shaping up to be one of the worst reviewed books of the year, but since the critics didn’t all love The Lovely Bones either, Sebold’s many fans should judge her third effort for themselves.