The Almost Moon (2007) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters edit see section history

• Jake: Helen's ex husband
• Sarah: Helen's daughter
• Natalie: Helen's best friend
• Hamish: Natalie's son
• Helen: the main character, who's life is tied to that of the mother she both loves and hates.
• Mr. Forrest: a friend and neighbour of Helen's parents
• Mrs. Leverton: Add a description of this character.
• Emily: Helen's daughter
• Mrs. Castle
• Mr. Warner
• Alice Sebold
• Manny
• Jeanine
• Tanner Haku
• Broumas
• Avery
• Tosh
• Leo
• Mrs. Tolliver
• John
• Billy Murdoch
• Joe
• Westmore
• Dorothy
• Grandma
• Carl Fletcher
• Degas
• Gerald

Quotes edit see section history

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• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• “The moon is whole all the time, but we can’t always see it. What we see is an almost moon or a not-quite moon. The rest is hiding just out of view, but there’s only one moon, so we follow it in the sky. We plan our lives based on its rhythms and tides.”

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• Need was like a weed, a virus, a mold. Once you admitted to it, it spread and ruled.

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• “I like to think that your mother is almost whole,” he said. “So much in life is about almosts, not quites.”

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• When was it that you realized the thread woven through your DNA carried the relationship deformities of your blood relatives as much as it did their diabetes or bone density?

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• “Poison and medicine are often the same thing, given in different proportions,”

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• The thing about dementia is that sometimes you feel like the afflicted person has a trip wire to the truth, as if they can see beneath the skin you hide in.

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• When I inserted the key in the lock of my door, I saw my own epitaph: SHE LIVED SOMEBODY ELSE’S LIFE.

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• In that moment, I could not have realized what had just happened to me. My father had exited stage right, and in I had walked, seeing it not only as my duty but as perhaps the greatest gift I might give him posthumously, to take forever the burden of my mother.

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• I walked to the center of my front lawn and lay down, spread-eagled. I looked up at the stars. How did I end up in a place where doing such a thing marked you for crazy, while my neighbors dressed concrete ducks in bonnets at Easter and in striped stocking caps at Christmas but were considered sane?

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• I knew my mother’s limitations because they formed the marrow of my bones. I realized then, as I had sensed for years but never named, that I was born in order to be her proxy in the world and to bring that world back home—whether that meant bright construction-paper creations from my first years in school or meeting the angry men out in the yard. I would do it all for her. That was our particular unspoken contract, how this child served this parent.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Wisconsin
• Phoenixville
• Madison
• Limerick
• Pennsylvania
• Santa Barbara
• New York

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Acolyte: one who tends or assists; a follower
• Bursar: an organization's officer in charge of funds, as in a treasurer
• Linchpin: something that serves to hold together parts that together work as a unit
• Ephemeral: lasting only a short time
• Mimeograph: a duplicator for making many copies that utilizes a stencil through which ink is pressed
• Warren: an area of land authorized to keep small game or an area where small game (such as rabbits) breed and live
• Sanguine: Can mean (depending on context) either: 1) involving or relating to blood 2) confident or optimistic
• Ecumenical: worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application
• Collusion: secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose
• Declaim: can mean either 1) to speak rhetorically, to recite something OR 2) to speak pompously or bombastically
• Stolid: reacting without emotion
• Homunculus: a manikin or a miniaturized rendition of the human form

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Alice Sebold (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3619.E26 A79 2007
• Dewey: 813.6

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Adult themes

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Women's Fiction › Mothers & Children
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( S )