Review of The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold’s second novel, is almost there: almost profound, almost heart wrenching, almost worth reading. Maybe it’s because, like her debut novel, The Lovely Bones, similar motifs crop up: chopped up bodies, bitter and absent mothers, complicated sexual relations. But, unlike The Lovely Bones, Sebold doesn’t take it as far as she needs to; instead, she just tiptoes back over the same issues without the same level of lyricism or gusto.

The biggest problem with The Almost Moon is it grabs you right away, but you whittle away hours reading, waiting for that ‘aha!’ moment, only to be left scrambling for a of worthwhile scrap of meaning, of reason, of anything that will justify the 291 page journey. Sebold offers a strong premise: “When all is said and done,” reads the opening the line, “killing my mother came easily.” But it’s all down hill from there.

The story is this: fifty-year-old Helen Knightly’s mother, feeble with dementia, becomes to much a burden for her, so she suffocates her with a pillow. Then, Helen proceeds to spend the next day and a half running around, decapitated chicken style, making bad choices (like calling her ex-husband, returning to the scene of the crime, and screwing her best friend’s thirty-year-old son) while dwelling on her childhood and what her mother was like.

Sebold’s characters are richly developed. Shame none of them are likeable. Helen acts like a total idiot, to the point where you stop feeling sorry for her or care about what will happen to her. Helen’s mother put her through hell as a child, her father is sweet but weak-willed, and her adult daughters are snobby, trite, and ignorant.

Now add these characters you can’t stand to a non-linear narrative that jars you to the point of irritation. Sebold jumps from present to way-far-back past to midway past to recent past to earliest past, all in one chapter. And if you happen to skate over one small detail, you may be derailed for the rest of the book.

Then, the final ingredient: Sebold’s level of craftsmanship seems to have dwindled. Many of her more poetic moments feel forced and shoddy, not lovely and natural as they did in The Lovely Bones. They come at points of strong emotion, built up and set up and then—they give up. For instance, sometime after killing her mom, Helen is being comforted by her ex-husband Jake. She is crying in his arms, and mentally admitting to her self that she missed and loved her mother, but when Jake asks her what’s wrong; she answers, “‘I’m just so cold’.” It almost sickened me to read such a clichéd line from an author whose skills blew me away one book ago.

I’m still a little sad and shocked at what a disappointment The Almost Moon turned out to be. With every page turn, I hoped that the spells Sebold once cast would resurface and engulf me, bringing me back to the world of horrible beauty and graceful sadness that The Lovely Bones created. Instead, all I got was just hints of it. Imagine biting into an éclair to find it has no cream inside—it looked so tasty and the initial taste was sweet, but in the end, it was still empty.

My advice: if you want a healthy dose of Sebold’s magic, just reread The Lovely Bones and save yourself the frustration of The Almost Moon’s desperate tries to prove itself worthy. It’s just not.

By Kacie Versaci