Alice Sebold: The Almost Brilliant Sequel to the Lovely Bones.. but not quite :(
April 3rd 2008 02:06
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
I literally went out to buy The Almost Moon the day it appeared in bookshops. For those who don’t know, it’s the long awaited sequel to Alice Sebold’s international best seller, The Lovely Bones.
Oh. My. God. Don’t get me started on The Lovely Bones. It is a work of rare literary talent. Astonishing, really.
I am, as a consequence of The Lovely Bones devoted to Alice Sebold. I am an unashamed groupie of hers. I think she’s a genius. So believe me when I say I wanted to love The Almost Moon.
Maybe I set her up for failure. I’d heard too much about it before it came out. The opening line was apparently The Most Talked about opening line of a book pre-publication:
‘When all was said and done, killing my mother came easy.’
Who could resist a book that begins like this? You could sit for YEARS, waiting to come up with a line like that.
The story is of Helen Knightly, a woman in her late forties, who kills her mentally ill mother by suffocating her. The book then takes place over the next twenty four hours in Helen’s life as she tries to work out what to do about what she has just done. We are also led through her childhood history as an only child to a narcissistic, fragile, frightening mother, whom Helen has barely survived. On the afternoon when she kills her mother, she can take no more. Clearly.
The plot is fertile ground for a Sebold construal of light within the shadows. In a letter Alice Sebold wrote on the eve of the publication of The Almost Moon, she said that she wants us to ‘follow her (Helen) into all the dark places she is going because I believe it’s in those dark places where we often see most clearly the truth about how to live or how not to.’ She also claimed that her intention was to write a book that would provide readers with both discomfort and pleasure and that the book is ultimately about love.
I saved the book up for the December holidays. And when I finally sat with it, I wanted more than anything to find the pleasure within the discomfort and to stumble across illuminating insights about love, even within the darkness. But – and how it grieves me to say this – I struggled.
The success of a book is so precariously balanced on readers loving the characters. But I didn’t care in the least what happened to Helen, nor what her horrible childhood looked like nor even why she killed her mother. I think my trouble with The Almost Moon is that I found Helen to be a particularly unlikeable character from the start. I had to work too hard to empathize with her.
If readers cannot connect with the perpetrator, at the very least they should feel sympathy for the victim. Death and murder at the outset of a book are designed to shock us and draw us in. But Helen’s mother is abusive, manipulative and in a state of degenerative dementia. When a daughter kills a mother who was ghastly in all respects, as readers, our feelings of empathy are trumped by a resounding sense of ‘good riddance.’ Helen’s pain is just encased in too much brittleness, far from that of Susie Salmon’s mother in The Lovely Bones, who ends up having an affair with the cop in charge of Susie’s case. We ache for her in a way we never do for Helen.
This book lacks the soft lyricism that abounds through The Lovely Bones, which is about the most unbearable of subject matters – the rape and murder of a fourteen year old girl and the effect it has on her family. Narrated from the dead Susie's perspective in heaven, the book could have been a whacko job in anyone else's hands, but Sebold manages to turn it into a completely believable, curiously uplifting story of letting go.
Sebold’s aim, as she articulates it, was to write a disquieting story of the complexity of love, especially between children and parents. But even when Helen claims she loved her mother, I found this hard to believe. There is a straining here – straining for effect, straining for shock value and straining for a complexity that I disappointingly feel is never fully achieved.
If there is any author I want to succeed and succeed again, it is Alice Sebold. Nothing can take away from the astounding genius of The Lovely Bones.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Perhaps as devoted fans, we need to be generous enough to allow our most beloved authors to write new books without always holding them up against the light of a previous work of singular beauty.
www.joannefedler.com
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Comment by Jayne Kearney
Writers In Writing (and other writing)
I am also a big fan of Alice Sebold and waited in anticipation for The Almost Moon. I love the title (and it's explanation in the book) but I also had trouble empathising with the main character. I did not like the ending at all and I felt an itching irritation when I was done with it.
Saying that, I did think the scene on the front lawn where the child-Helen has to face the angry mob of fathers on her mother's behalf really heartbreaking. The weakness of both of her parents really pissed me off.
It is hard when you love an author to then accept a less-than perfect offering. I loved Cormac McCarthy's The Road with a passion but couldn't handle No Country For Old Men (although the film is supposedly magnificent).
And on a more comical note (?) - I care for my mother who is disabled following a stroke - she has a fabulous sense of humour- and while I was reading The Almost Moon I kept saying to her, "Mum, if you knew the book I was reading right now you would watch your step!!" Every time I visited her I shared a little of Helen's life with her. Rest assured she found it very funny! We have the sort of bond that allows for inappropriate jokes!!
Jayne
Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
It's amazing what sort of a bond you have with your mum - so sorry to hear about her stroke. She is really blessed to have you to take care of her. I have a disabled sister, who is deaf, who when we all argue, turns her hearing aids off!
I'm sorry I didn't like The Almost Moon more. Also because I feel intensely disloyal being critical of someone who is so talented and brilliant (have you read Sebold's autobiography Lucky about being raped when she was 18? It is heart-breaking).
Lionel Shriver's, We Need to Talk About Kevin is again for me, a work of unparalleled brilliance. But The Post-Birthday World was... not. Some great lines in it, some beautiful prose, but it was just so long... and at times, wearying (she did tend to go on and on about snooker).
Anyway, I always hope for kind-hearted and generous reviews of my books, so it makes it even harder for me to be critical of my literary heroes.
Alice - I love you. Please write another book. I will always read you.
Jayne, thanks for your lovely response.
Jo
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
I'm with you. If I find the main character to be unlikeable I really struggle with the book.
I must read The Lovely Bones again. I thought it was a great book when I read it, but I haven't re-read it. I think I'll do that this weekend (going to crappy weather, what better way to spend a Sundy than sitting on the couch re-reading a great book)
Kylie
Comment by Jayne Kearney
Writers In Writing (and other writing)
I haven't read Lucky but it's absolutely on my list and now I must bump it up a bit.
How funny you should mention Lionel Shriver. I loved Kevin so desperately and read Double Fault straight after. I perservered because I loved her work but it was also a bit tedious with the tennis and all. I have just started The Post-Birthday World so shall see how I go.
It's true though, sometimes you just have to take in the moments of brilliance and accept the feet of clay!
And I guess we can take the advice of Irina in The Post-Birthday World
"Irina was convinced that what went on in her mind mattered, and silently cast strangers in the gentlest possible light...internal generosity made her feel better."
Read 'other authors' for 'strangers'.
But then what do we do about Jodie Piccoult??
Jayne
Comment by tlcorbin
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Comment by Joanne Fedler
Secret Writers Business
Jayne, I have to say I am TOTALLY envious of Jodi Picoult - she has cleverly come up with a formula that has made her a multi-millionaire - so my little snipes are really just sour grapes. I wish all authors success, (some more than others - Sebold, for example... ) I just don't read Jodi Picoult. I feel like I'm being manipulated as a reader, do you know what I mean? And her endings always feel contrived. Like she's laughing while playing with my emotions as she reveals some horrible ha-ha! at the end. In any event, people do love her, they buy her, and what the public loves and buys, I guess we should try to write..? or starve.
Howdy Raven. Thanks for popping by. How's life your side of the planet? I even got my husband to read THe Lovely Bones and Lucky and he was blown away too - so Sebold is not just for the girls. You may enjoy her too...?
Jo
Comment by tlcorbin
Coffee Quip
A Global Citizen
Paranormal Paranormal
Is Why
Alaska Chronicle
Sleezer's World