Sebold, Alice: The Almost Moon
The Almost Moon
Writer: Alice Sebold
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 291
I read The Lovely Bones back in 2003. I didn't read much that year, but I did read that. I couldn't resist, not with the lovely, tasteful cover, the premise, and the fact it'd been number one on the bestseller list for nearly half a year. And naturally, I loved the book. It's one of my favorites, and I'm curious to see Peter Jackson's adaptation, whenever that's released.
I never got around to reading Sebold's memoir, so even though I have it, it never counted to me as a "second" novel, and I was wondering just when, or if, she'd ever get around to writing it.
When I heard about The Almost Moon, I was thrilled. Then I started hearing the reviews, and my excitement was dampened into suspicious curiosity. But I had to read the book, had to know for myself, especially with the book's infamous first line: When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily.
And now that I've finished the book, let me be the first to say: if you expect Sebold's sophomore effort to be anything like The Lovely Bones in any shape or form, put The Almost Moon down and back away slowly. Don't pick it up, because you will be disappointed.
Because The Almost Moon is the dark to The Lovely Bones's light***. And that's the best way I can describe it. The books are polar opposites, and the subject matter, the narrator, just might disturb readers who fell in love with Sebold's debut effort.
In many ways, The Almost Moon is a typical literary novel: a character sketch with little plot direction and lots of introspection. How it fares compared to other books that examine the inner self in relation to family, dysfunctional ones at that, I really can't say. It's nowhere near as disturbing or shocking as something Chuck Palahniuk might write, but it lacks the realistic grounding of something that Sheri Reynolds might write. And yet, it has its own distinct weight, which is important, because what counts in literary novels, for my two cents, is character above language/prose, which means that no matter how often a subject matter is examined, every version from any author should be very different. Because the characters are different.
So for someone who wants to examine why a woman would be driven to murder her elderly mother and the dysfunctional family she comes from and the choices she must make in light of her actions, this is a very interesting and satisfying read.
But it is by no means a perfect read. Let's just get that out of the way: the beginning centers on that one moment, those few hours, in which Helen, the narrator, makes the decision to kill her mother and her immediate quandary of what to do with the body. I think this takes up about fifty pages, full of flashbacks you aren't quite ready for but slowly warm up to. Once Helen leaves her mother's house, with the body stowed safely away in the basement's freezer, does the story and the narrative pick up. There's direction. While no purpose, you know that the book can end two ways: Helen gets caught or she doesn't. The real question is, and what should keep you reading, is deciding whether or not you want her caught to begin with.
It's funny, though, how those first fifty-plus pages represent the state of mind Helen is in during the act. She's aimless, lacks direction. No focus. And so is the prose. Quite the imitative fallacy, and I'm sure it's been done better, as I know my mind was swimming while reading it and I found myself dreading the rest the book. But once that passes, you're in.
What interested me about this book was the sheer tenuousness of the relationships involved. Helen's relationship to her mother, who her mother was. The stress of taking care of an elderly parent. I haven't yet had to put myself in such a situation, but my grandmother has, and I've seen what it did to her. My future mother-in-law is also facing this particular situation, and I see what it's doing to her. It's something I fear doing myself, so this book, in many ways, was a crystal ball. Not telling my exact future, but pointing out the similar ingredients and showing yet another recipe that can be cooked up.
I think this book is hard to understand if you've never hated a parent, or come close. No doubt, people resent their parents on some level. We all feel, on some level, that our parents failed us somehow, and when we reach that realization in our lives that our parents aren't perfect, that they're human, we must make a choice: accept them for who they are, or condemn them.
This is the story of a woman who condemned her mother. And once you read the book, learn of Helen's life growing up and see the life she carries as an adult, it's no wonder she blamed her mother, even if, on some level, that blame isn't entirely deserved.
But the question this book raises is this: are we truly any different than our parents? Can we escape the rigors of our upbringing to be something different? Is how we are raised a predestination of what we will become, and if that example is a negative one, what hope do we have for escape?
For readers of dysfunctional families (of any kind), this is a serious question.
And Sebold provides a rather ambiguous answer, but once that fits the web of the story: we can't escape, but we can take responsibility for our own actions. We can hide in the rooms of our own making, or we can invite people in and let them understand.
To say this book resonated with me is an understatement. That's not saying I want to murder my mother or ever dreamed about it, as the narrator fantasized, but had my own situation simply been shades different, I might have.
For Sebold to touch in this kind of truth is rather powerful, and the unfortunate thing is it's a truth that has a limited audience. I'm sorry that critics are slamming this book, because it's every bit as powerful as The Lovely Bones, if not more so, because for those people who can relate, like me, it allows us another avenue of self-examination, and that's important. There's sadness and darkness to this book, but there's also a small flame of hope. I'm not sure how many people can appreciate that. But if you've had any kind of dysfunctional relationship with your parents, you might get that kernel of truth and insight that I did.
Or maybe not.
*** = I should note that by no means am I unaware that there's quite a bit of darkness in The Lovely Bones. I mean, come on, it's a story about a girl who was raped and murdered. But if you've read the book, I think you'll understand what I mean about it being "light" especially in comparison to this.
Next up: The Orphan's Tales: In The Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne Valente