 | |
| Author | Alice Sebold |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
Publication date | 2007 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 291 |
| ISBN | 0-316-67746-9 |
| OCLC | 85830839 |
| 813/.6 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3619.E26 A79 2007 |
The Almost Moon is the third book and the second novel by the American author Alice Sebold, author of the memoir, Lucky and the best-selling novel The Lovely Bones.The Almost Moon was released by Little, Brown and Company in the United States on October 16, 2007. [1]
The professional art-class model, mother, and divorcee, Helen Knightly spontaneously murders her mother, an agoraphobic who is suffering from severe dementia, by suffocating her with a towel. But while Helen's act is almost unconscious, it also seems like the fulfilment of a long-cherished, buried desire, since she spent a lifetime trying to win the love of a mother who had none to spare. Over the next twenty-four hours, Helen recalls her: childhood, youth, marriage, and motherhood. Helen's life and the omnipresent relationship with her mother rush in at her as she confronts the choices that have brought her to that crossroads. Partly absent-mindedly, partly desperately she tries to conceal her crime, and in doing so ropes her ex-husband into the conspiracy.
The novel received mixed reviews from literary critics. While some lauded the story for its unflinching portrayal of violence and mental illness in America, others found it messy or unconvincing. Eileen Battersby of The Irish Times described the novel as "comparable to Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides (1993), is a candid, at times horribly funny and often beautifully touching exploration of one woman's realisation that her life has been swallowed, or rather cancelled. The genius which guides The Almost Moon is its absolute, horrible, multiple truth; its staggering clarity." [2] Helen Dunmore of The Times notes that, "Chapter by chapter, Sebold peels away the layers of her narrator's misery and self-deception, and creates an extended and sometimes blackly comic critique of a popular literary genre." [3] While Kim Hedges of the San Francisco Chronicle concludes that the novel is "simultaneously uncomfortable and absorbing". [4] Similarly, Lee Siegel of The New York Times described the book as "so morally, emotionally and intellectually incoherent that it's bound to become a best seller." [5] In Literary Review , Carole Angier wrote: “Instead of awakening you to tragedy as The Lovely Bones does, as all good writing does, The Almost Moon makes you want to keep your eyes firmly closed.” [6] Michael Antman of PopMatters asserted that The Almost Moon is "vastly more resonant and real than the fairy tale that made her name". [7]
However, Anna Shapiro of The Guardian called The Almost Moon "unrealistic, but it's leavened with realistic description". [8] Writing for Village Voice, Elizabeth Hand was similarly critical of the book's subject matter, noting that, "the book is emotionally false... it is implausible that people would react to the murder as they do." [9] Sam Anderson of the New York Magazine criticized the novel for its similarity to Sebold's second book, The Lovely Bones, noting that, "it’s tempting to think that Sebold is self-plagiarizing strategically here, Faulkner style, in order to knit the books meaningfully together—but unfortunately there’s no real evidence of this. I wonder, instead, if her imaginative territory is just so small that we’ve already had the full tour." [10]
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1996.
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The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by American writer Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received critical praise and became an instant bestseller. A film adaptation, directed by Peter Jackson, who personally purchased the rights, was released in 2009. The novel was also later adapted as a play of the same name, which premiered in England in 2018.
Alice Sebold is an American author. She is known for her novels The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and a memoir, Lucky. The Lovely Bones was on The New York Times Best Seller list and was adapted into a film by the same name in 2009. Her memoir, Lucky, sold over a million copies and describes her experience in her first year at Syracuse University, when she was raped. Anthony Broadwater was incorrectly identified as the perpetrator. Broadwater spent 16 years in prison. He was exonerated in 2021, after a judge overturned the original conviction. Consequently, the publisher of Lucky announced that the book would no longer be distributed.
Lucky is a 1999 memoir by the American novelist Alice Sebold, best known as the author of the 2002 novel The Lovely Bones.Lucky describes her experience of being raped and beaten when she was eighteen in a tunnel near Syracuse University where she was a student, and how this traumatic experience shaped the rest of her life. Sebold has stated that her reason for writing the book was to bring more awareness to rape and rape survivors. The memoir sold over one million copies.
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The Lovely Bones is a 2009 supernatural drama film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay he co-wrote with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. It is based on Alice Sebold's 2002 novel of the same name and stars Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Michael Imperioli, and Saoirse Ronan. The plot follows a girl who is murdered and watches over her family from heaven and is torn between seeking vengeance on her killer and allowing her family to heal.
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A Spell of Winter is a 1995 literary gothic novel by Helen Dunmore, set in England, around the time of World War I. The novel was the first recipient of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996.
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