The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

The Almost Moon
By Alice Sebold
Pub. Date: October 2007
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 291pp

First Line: "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."

OMG. Am I EVER a sucker for a great first line! Where do you go from there? Well, let me keep reading to find out!

Synopsis:
A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable... 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.

My Thoughts:

From time to time I come across a book with a subject matter and a main character that I both pity and abhor, and yet in the end, I find the book so beautiful. This is one of those. One one hand, Helen's life has been such a tragedy. Growing up with a mother with a disease that stifled her from being anything near compassionate or loving. A father, always traveling for work, somewhat enabling, but too codependent to make any different choices.

In the hours that follow her fateful act, Helen's life unfolds for us. Her childhood, marriage, own motherhood. One thing becomes very clear: Helen never untangled herself fully from her mother. Helen did all things for Clair. When a neighborhood child was struck by a hit and run driver in front of Helen's home, her mother stood at the curb, unable to assist, move, even speak. Later when the men in the neighborhood came to confront Clair, she hid in the bathroom while Helen went outside to face their wrath. "I was born in order to be her proxy in the world and to bring that world back home... I would do it all for her. This was our particular unspoken contract, how this child served this parent." p. 105

"When was it that you realized the thread woven through your DNA carried the relationship deformity of your blood relatives as much as it did their diabetes or bone density?" p. 79

The Almost Moon.... Helen's father described it best...

"I like to think that our mother is almost whole," he said. "So much in life is about almosts, not quites."

"Like the moon," I said....

"Right," he said. "the moon is whole all the time, but we can't always see it. What we see is an almost moon or a not-quite moon. The rest is hiding just out of view, but there's only one moon, so we follow it in the sky. We plan our lives based on its rhythms and tides."

I know that I was supposed to understand something from my father's explanation, but what I came away with was that, just as we were stuck with the moon, so too we were stuck with my mother. Wherever I'd travel, there she'd be.

I guess we sometimes make very desperate and unthinkable decisions when we feel stuck. This book explores one of those, in such a way that it almost feels forgivable.