Alice Sebold’s second novel, The Almost Moon (2007), is the follow-up to her well-received first novel, The Lovely Bones, which was adapted for film by director Peter Jackson. The Almost Moon follows it in its depiction of terror, bodily trauma, violence, and mental illness. The novel takes place over a fluid twenty-four-hour period interspersed with memories and flashbacks after the main character, Helen Knightly, murders her mother. Although critical reviews were mixed to negative, many critics praise Sebold’s style and ability to face challenging subjects head-on. Helen Knightly murders her eighty-eight-year-old mother, Clair, by suffocating her with a towel after she goes to bathe her and is disgusted by the scent of her waste. Her mother lives her life as an agoraphobic, and as she gets older, develops dementia. Helen is a nude model for art students, a mother of two daughters, and divorced. She lives a life she perceives as normal until her awareness of familial dysfunction seeps in from the outside. Sebold writes from Helen’s perspective; Helen could be classified as an anti-hero and an unreliable narrator. Though the novel unfolds over the twenty-four-hours after the murder, it is mostly made up of flashbacks to her childhood and her life before the murder. She confesses that, although a spontaneous act, the murder is the fulfillment of a lifelong desire. She has always desired to kill her mother, and this moment is a culmination of those feelings. She blames her mother for slowly destroying her life, both directly and emotionally. The first section focuses on Helen’s experience with her mother’s body: having to take her clothes off to bathe her. This transitions to blunt and grotesque descriptions of dealing with her corpse. As she deals with the aftermath of the murder, she brings her ex-husband, Jake, into the mix as a co-conspirator when she calls him. The next section recalls posing for young art students. This establishes the link between the body, memory, and trauma. This also ties into her mother’s criticism of her body throughout her childhood. As she goes about covering up the murder, certain incidents trigger a flashback. For example, when she bumps her head getting into the car, she is reminded of an incident where her mother dropped Helen’s grandson on his head. After bringing her mother’s body down to the cellar, she reflects on sleeping with her best friend Natalie’s son Hamish. He is much younger than she. Natalie is extremely angry with Helen after she finds out. Helen has known Hamish from birth and participated in his upbringing, giving the relationship an incestuous tone. The flashbacks reveal her family as dysfunctional and troubled. Triggered by seeing her father’s gun collection, Helen recalls her father’s suicide. He suffers from mental illness and a tormented past. She also reflects on her mother’s relationship with her father, Daniel. He suffers from depression. Helen concludes that her mother’s experience with mental illness draws him to her and is, possibly, what made them stay together for so long. Although living a perceptively normal childhood, the dysfunction of Helen’s parents leads to her issues in adulthood. The depiction of Helen’s mother is somewhat autobiographical, comparable to the depiction in Sebold’s memoir, Lucky. Helen’s mother is cruel and loveless to Helen. She constantly criticizes her, especially her appearance, and is difficult to please. Despite this, Helen sacrifices her average life to care for her mother. Claiming to hate her mother, she questions why she chose to care for her in the first place. She concludes that her failed personal life is probably what ties her to her mother, but she cannot settle on a direct reason for sticking around. When her mother develops agoraphobia, she acts strangely when leaving the house, covering herself in blankets and moaning. She hates the chaos of society. Helen, in contrast, hates the confines of her life and the barriers keeping her trapped. She wants to escape. Helen first meets her ex-husband, Jake, while he’s an art student and she’s teaching. This sets up a power dynamic that seeps into their relationship. Helen’s daughters are exact opposites of each other. Reflecting some of her own mother, Helen questions if she is a good mother to them. She left them after the divorce and lacks affection. Her ex-husband also questions her ability as a mother. He understands leaving him, but leaving their daughters behind is unforgivable in his eyes. The close of the novel leaves Helen with a small chance for redemption. She chooses to face the consequences of her actions. She realizes that her daughters should not inherit the sins of their mother – as well as Helen’s mother – and facing judgment is her only option. She hopes to repair her relationships from the claustrophobic setting of a prison or mental institution, a link to her mother’s agoraphobia. The reader is left to question if Helen can be redeemed for killing her mother and if her own perspective of her life is sympathetic or unreliably skewed.

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Alice Sebold

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