The Almost Moon: A Novel by Alice Sebold
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Book Reviews of The Almost Moon: A Novel
Book Review: The Almost Moon was Worth A Million Stars
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently read "The Almost Moon" by Alice Sebold and was impressed. I decided to try out Sebold due to the Peter Jackson movie "The Lovely Bones," which is based off of the book with the same title. Of the two Sebold books read, I really like how she uses the first sentence of the book as a punch in the guts then continues working from that main point.
In "The Almost Moon" the first line in Chapter 1 states, "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." Very quickly the reader is grabbed with this statement and then there is no turning back.
This work of fiction is about a woman named Helen, who takes care of her mother Clair, who suffers dementia. After Helen murders her mother, the remainder of the book is the following 24 hours. Although the style of murder Helen uses is clean and quick, Sebold describes the scene very quickly and grotesquely so that the reader wasn't severely repulsed but deeply shocked.
Although murder is committed, I felt extremely sorry for the victim and the murderess as it seemed that every character in this book were good at heart. Despite the innocence this book insinuates, there is a great deal of hurtful scenes and negative emotions that can easily strike too close to home for some individuals.
The mother Clair, although not a bad person, defiantly never took the responsibility of a mother and when dementia kicked in, her mean streak showed even greater, especially to her daughter. As the book progresses the reader experiences bitter sweet emotions as Helen recalls fond memories and hurtful events regarding her parents. The reader is left feeling sorrow for Helen as it seems like she had never truly made her mother proud, despite her efforts.
In the end I felt that Helen committed a mercy killing without thinking of the consequences. At first, everything seems almost cold hearted, however, as you read on you discover that mother and daughter had formed a very codependent and unhealthy relationship, somewhat like Norman Bates and his mother in Psycho. Although, Helen did have a family and career of her own, she put everything aside to appease her mother, who had never granted her unconditional love.
I believe what Sebold is focusing on in this book is consequences and if an individual is truly happy being dependent or codependent. When the book began, Helen felt liberated as she had granted her mother peace and had finally cut the apron string, however, the reader later learns that although Helen claims killing her mother is easy, the aftermath is devastating. I won't spoil the ending for anyone and although I saw the ending coming a mile away, I was shocked to actually read the conclusion, which is just as big of a gut punch as the first sentence of the book.
Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 I give this book a 9 1/2. Many people didn't care for this book as they were hoping for another "Lovely Bones". In all honesty, I'm glad to see that Sebold is a woman who isn't scared to jump into untested waters. Due to her style, emotion, and characterization I honestly feel Sebold is the modern female version of Hitchcock or Stephen King.
Book Review: Heavy-gauge emotion written with powerful insight
Summary: 5 Stars
Although not as whimsically imaginative in conception as her previous novel, The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold, with The Almost Moon, has created what is in almost every way a superior work: grim, honest, darkly funny, uncompromising, and as thorough an examination of a single character's psyche--and the poisonous effect that character's mindset has had on her family and other relationships--as you're likely to find in contemporary "art" fiction. (And make no mistake: this is an art novel.) I surely never came to like or even deeply sympathize with Helen, the middle-aged woman who smothers her aged, unpleasantly senile mother in the book's opening sequence, but I was extraordinarily interested in Helen from the outset, and only grew more interested as the book progressed. In Sebold's careful, often uncomfortably understated prose, Helen is rather like the pebble that's tossed into a pond, sending ripples to other parts of the water. To pursue the simile, this pebble is poison. It doesn't appear to be poison at first glance, and not even after a second glance, but those ripples are dangerous. Helen touches a lot of lives, and although she desperately wants to connect with other people, she refuses to make honest attempts to do so. I particularly applaud Sebold because, although the book establishes quite clearly that Helen's mother is a colossal pain in the rear, and that the dynamic between the mother and Helen's father was skewed, even demented, we are not asked to excuse Helen's act of murder. Her mother's mental state is not a capital crime. Helen committed a crime when she surrendered to a weak moment and coarsely ended a situation that surely would have resolved itself with time--that is, the mother would have died, sooner rather than later, of natural causes. Secondary characters are as vivid and as frequently ambiguous as Helen herself. I would not like to know many of these people--with their narrow minds, querelousness, emotional laziness, and easy opportunism--but they ring true because I have encountered their like many times over the years. Just as Sebold doesn't ask us to excuse Helen, she doesn't insist that we assume all people are moral ciphers, either. Helen's book- and music-loving neighbor, the quietly wonderful Mr. Forrest, is proof of that. There is the possibillity of reward and redemption in our lives; Helen doesn't find hers because she probably doesn't deserve them, but that doesn't make her any less intriguing. This is a major novel that, I regret to note, has exposed the timidity of many reviewers and everyday readers. They have to understand that Sebold doesn't want to shock us or enchant us or mollify us--she just wants us to confront the truth about one flawed, completely human woman.Book Review: A complete book of almost folks
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps it's generational, but to me the family in this novel is marginally odd. The members, from Grandpa through Sarah, quarrel with life more than people I know. Maybe that's the exaggeration that makes the plot work. It isn't that their pith isn't real: it's that it's tinged bizarre. What else could explain the actions of our protagonist, Helen? Obviously her DNA primarily moves her, with a good dose of family "values" to round her out.
Having read the many criticisms about the plot, I reflected on the axiom: you can't go wrong with a happy ending. Any ending that is not tightly wrapped in good feelings, including poetic justice, runs the risk of supposedly disappointing a large portion of the readership. That said, for me, the plot was skillfully carried to a realistic end, considering the strange protagonist and her helpers. Re-read Helen's desultory asides. She wasn't a killer, but rather a person capable of crossing the border. And, while in this foreign space, of course she would tease us about her final act. With varied possibilities available, how would she attempt to cross back? In the simulated wording of critics: the plot is a trip to a previously unknown place, with perplexing adventures and an uncertain return---done fetchingly.
About themes, I just kept thinking about the present relevance of King Lear. Helen hating her Mommy never entered my mind. There is no good ageing. Without joint replacements, 65 is the new 64 1/2. And, at some future time, as a society, we'll have to debate the disturbing point at which a medically deferred death does not make a life; not unlike our continuing debate about when life begins. "Herself", the author, stirs us to consider the lingering problem, while facing the reality of prescription drugs becoming ever more efficacious. We can be thankful that, except for a few megalomaniacs of a century not long in the past, most of us don't relish playing God. Helen had thought about this very issue, frequently and in depth, and drew no conclusion, until the solution manifested itself in her plain sight.
A final point--- I marvel at Ms. Sebold's writing skill: fluid, easy, concise and replete with LOL dry humor. She must work very hard to make it look so easy.
The book is a good story, and, in the end, you just wish you could interview the writer. It's a work which took courage to write. The author herself crossed a border. 'Tis a good thing for us readers.
Book Review: the ambiguity of victimhood
Summary: 5 Stars
In "The Almost Moon" bad things don't happen to good people. On the contrary, Alice Sebold's middle-aged protagonist, Helen, is impulsively transgressive. Sebold herself seems to have, in the opinion of many reviewers, committed the ultimate transgression, that of creating an unlovable protagonist. The well of pity and sorrow that her past (wonderful) memoir and novel drew on is not required for this novel. She has dared to write an utterly fresh story in which appalling things happen, quotidian things happen, and life is ambiguous. In addition, the reader is not asked to ache for the victims. There's a coldness here, and it works.
By now the facts of the case are known. A middle-aged daughter responsible for the care and feeding of her elderly demented mother smothers her. The next few days are quietly harrowing. Between the homicide and the last page, the reader is taken on a purposeful yet mesmerizing tour of 1960's American suburbia and the memory of relationships in a family that was wholly governed by an agoraphobic, quietly sociopathic, and genteely cruel mother. There was a weak and secretive father and, finally, the narrator, an only child who has made a life that has sometimes pleased her (and others), often disappointed - but rings awfully true.
There are neighbors, friends, the vagaries of the body and sex, work, the disappointments of marriage and parenthood, along with the poignancy of children - plus the fact of aging and the late (sometimes too late) understanding of the past. The mother's bizarre behavior at one point incites the neighbors to gather, enraged, on the front lawn. It's terrifying. Finally, later, the narrator is amazed, and then freed, somewhat, by a trustworthy neighbor's labeling of her mother as "mentally ill." Sebold's range is awesome.
I read this book in one sitting. I was glued to my seat. There is suspense, fully-drawn characters, and physical descriptions so thorough it's as if one is staring at a series of photographs. Improbable things happen in this novel, as they do in life. Sebold is a skillful storyteller with an eagle eye and "The Almost Moon" is a fascinating story, even when it hurts.
-Eileen Galen
Book Review: Blows The Lovely Bones out of the water!
Summary: 5 Stars
Alice Sebold is dark. Her first wildly bestselling novel dealt with the murder of a child. This novel deals with matricide. It's laid out plainly in the opening line, "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." Me, personally, I've never thought about murdering my mother. And yet, I totally understood how this previously law-abiding citizen wound up in the situation she was in. Sebold had me with her every step of the way.
The entire novel actually takes place in just about 24 hours. Forty-nine-year-old Helen is paying a visit to her difficult and declining 88-year-old mother Claire. In a moment of weakness (Or is it mercy?) Helen snaps. She suffocates her mother. This is horrible, but I believe most readers will understand why it happened. Helen had been a virtual slave to her mother for years. Their love/hate relationship is as complex as they come. Although the events of the novel unfold in the course of a day, through flashbacks and memories we really get the story of Helen's relationship with both of her parents as well as her ex-husband, friends, and now adult daughters. Helen is a product of her upbringing. She's become what she had to become. So, when she snaps and kills her mother, I understood it.
But from that one pivotal event, she does everything wrong. She compounds her mistake in truly horrible ways. It is the ultimate downward spiral, and watching it is like watching a train wreck--you can't look away. And I couldn't stop turning pages fast enough. You know it will end badly as she pulls others into her nightmare, but you just have to see how it ends. Now I know, and I find it a bit haunting.
This is that rare and most wonderful of things, a literary page-turner. The writing is fantastic and the plot compulsive. I saw Sebold speak to a room full of booksellers in June. She said, "This is what you're all wanting to know: Does the follow-up to The Lovely Bones suck?" Let me tell you, it does not suck. Sebold's sophomore effort is a triumph. Read it.