Book Review
by
Beverly Jackson
Forgive The Moon
by
Maryanne Stahl
It seems to me that readers who eschew fiction in favor of 'true life' non-fiction are missing the most meaningful aspects of life's truest realities.
It is through well-wrought fiction, in made-up characters and situations, that important spiritual and emotional realities of humankind are explored. Our personal lives can be richly enhanced by the understanding and denouement that such exploration can bring by way of fiction, because I think more truth is bared when it is anonymously attributed to made up people.
Maryanne Stahl's "Forgive The Moon" is a piece of writing that left me staring into space, thinking deeply of my own family, my relationships, my wounds and forgiveness.
The novel concerns a 40-year old woman, Amanda Kincaid, who comes to a Long Island beach resort for an annual family vacation-but nothing is as it was before. Although surrounded by family (her father, siblings, their spouses and children) those who are missing occupy Amanda's reality. Her oldest child, a daughter, has left for college and a new life; her husband is absent, involved with another woman as a 20-year marriage crumbles; her mother, cursed with a lifetime of mental illness, has recently died in an accident. The specter of this schizophrenic mother looms-a melancholy vehicle for exposing the secrets, lies and passions of an entire familial dynamic.
The chapters move back and forth through time in Amanda's clear and yearning voice. Her perceptions and self-realizations sparkle in details that give the reader intimate portraits of sexual need, the emptiness of failed love, the mysteries of motherhood, and creative urges that have been stifled. This is an astute, intelligent protagonist who finds the courage to unravel the familial tendrils that have nearly strangled her. In the reading, I found some of my own issues in Amanda, my own family in the composite of hers, and my own heavy moon in my heart.
The book jacket announces Ms. Stahl as a new voice in Women's Fiction, and with this, I would have to disagree. "Forgive The Moon," though dealing with a woman and a woman's
particular life, steps far beyond the 'moon, June, croon' of women's fiction and
addresses issues of mental illness, the dynamics of sibling rivalry, the neglect and
stifling of children by parents, and the true music of self individuation through the hardships of living. There are pieces of writing, like the Kincaid family around a death bed, that are inspired, funny, and heart breaking. Sue Miller's work popped into my mind on many occasions, (and she is another strong female voice that does not fit in the women's fiction category.)
Maryanne Stahl's talents are abundant. Her carefully drawn characters and plot pull us into a dreamy landscape of internal longing and a chilling look at how mental illness and everyday reality often resemble each other. I sat with this 284 page novel and read it in one sitting, totally absorbed, wholly pulled along to its surprising and satisfying end.
Maryanne Stahl, a native New Yorker, teaches writing at Kennesaw State
University near Atlanta. She lives on a lake with her cats, dog, ducks, son and husband.
FORGIVE THE MOON is her first novel; she is currently at work on her second novel, set on Shelter Island, N.Y.
E-mail her at maryannestahl@hotmail.com