The Almost Moon

By Alice Sebold




“When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily.”

This is the first sentence in “The Almost Moon” by Alice Sebold, and you know when you read it, the book has successfully pulled you in, whether you want to be pulled in or not. Many readers may feel too uncomfortable to read it, but there will be quite a few who find the challenge of this particular self-exploration rather intriguing.

Our protagonist, Helen, is called to her mother’s house by her mother’s neighbor. Upon Helen’s arrival, her mother is in full-dementia mode and very quickly soils herself. As Helen is pulling her mother around the house, in a blanket so she’ll slide easier, Helen suddenly breaks. She takes a hand towel she has been carrying and holds it down over her mother’s face. She uses so much pressure, her mother’s nose breaks. And then Helen realizes what she has done.
“The Almost Moon” is about the twenty-four hours that transpire after the murder, in which Helen makes one bad decision after another. The reader walks through Helen’s life, viewing first-hand the events which have molded Helen into the woman she is today.

There really is nothing normal about Helen’s childhood. Her mother was agoraphobic and bi-polar and was never treated for it. She was unfeeling for the most part and was part of the reason Helen never grew up knowing the importance of a hug. Helen’s father was primarily her mother’s protector; Helen was merely an afterthought. When he got tired of caretaking, he would leave a young Helen to her own devices; he would retreat to his own childhood home where he created plywood cut-outs of familial scenes. He eventually committed suicide.
The book leads you through Helen’s decision-making process after she kills her mother; should she run away, lie to the authorities, commit suicide? At different points in the book, the reader is sure of Helen’s choice. But then Helen makes a poor decision and it’s off to the races once again.

While this book was not something I can say I enjoyed (mostly due to the fact I was uncomfortable about it; I’ve honestly never felt like killing someone), I also have to admit I could not put the book down. It was a page-turner and some of the descriptions and images were interesting. One technique the author employed was giving Helen a very vivid imagination. Most often, her “daydreams” revolve around cutting her mother into tiny pieces and either holding her heart above a frying pan on the stove, or mailing her body parts in little boxes to places around the world.

Helen’s memories hold the key to what she has held as most important in her life: her own children. She recalls “Along with my father’s letters in the basement, there would be the paper Emily wrote in junior high, on which a teacher had scrawled a failing grade. I no longer remembered the woman’s name, Barber or Bartlett, something beginning with a B. I had marched into the junior high in a mock-mommy outfit I’d composed for effect– corduroy bag jumper and deranged Mary-Jane flats– and lit into Emily’s teacher with all my might. This had succeeded in gaining Emily a C and me a plea from my daughter never to do anything similar again. I still saw these moments spent in defense of my children as the finest of my life.”
Alice Sebold is an author who must be credited for thinking outside the box. Her nonchalance in her written violence makes the reader wonder just what tendencies lay deep within a neighbor’s, a friend’s, an acquaintance’s heart. Just where does one draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable?

This book is great for people who like dark stories. If you like books with a little more sunshine, don’t bother with this one. You probably won’t feel good after reading it. If sunshine isn’t necessary, read “The Almost Moon.” You may be occupied with all the questions running through your mind for several days after.

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