The Almost Moon

by: Alice Sebold

Published by: Little, Brown and Company

Reviewed by Andrea Sisco

Helen Knightly is a mature woman who reaches her breaking point and murders her elderly mother, Claire. She drags Claire’s body to the basement and calls her ex-husband to tell him what she did. She then has sex with her friend’s son.

During the twenty-four hours following the murder, Helen dissects her life and we live that life, with all the mental illness, the complex relationship with her mother, her father’s suicide, her ex-husband and daughters. The life that was. Her feelings are a roller-coaster of madness.

Sebold gives the reader the epitome of a dysfunctional family that is toxic to its core. The ‘love,’ rage and resentment in the relationship between Helen and Claire is deep, dark and twisted.

The novel is one of the darkest I’ve read this year and while I thought I was reading for entertainment, I found myself reading just because I wanted to know how ‘sick’ things would truly become and of course, I was drawn to know the outcome.

Armchair Interviews says: Sebold’s writing is magnificent, but this is not a novel for the faint of heart.