The Almost Moon

THE ALMOST MOON: Alice Sebold: Little, Brown and Company: Fiction: 291 pgs.

There is a line people do not cross. Helen Knightly, middle-aged divorced mother of two and caretaker of her chronically mentally-ill elderly mother, Clair, crosses it more than once in this unnerving and haunting twenty-four hour narrative. In effort to clean away the acrid scent of her mother soiling herself, Helen wraps Clair in blankets, sickly thinking, "Super Giant Mother Burrito," takes her out on the porch and instead smothers her with a towel.

Alice Sebold, author of reader-acclaimed novel, The Lovely Bones, writes another unforgettable book, despite how much one wishes to forget the latest. The story darkly weaves back and forth in time detailing their awful family life. Narcissistic and agoraphobic, Clair behaved cruelly to her husband and only child. Helen's father, mentally and physically exhausted, committed suicide several years earlier, and she is left alone to deal with her aging, demented and difficult mother. A less self-focused narrator might have elicited sympathy and suspended harsh judgment. I eagerly awaited the release of Sebold's latest novel since I enjoyed her first. But she fails to give any reason to like or feel compassion for Helen and offers no clear story's end beyond the crime scene line.

DLD