When the Moon Was Ours

“This is the story that mothers would tell their children.”

Much of the novel revolves around storytelling and town lore, both real (as with Aracely’s arrival in town along with thousands of golden butterflies) and imagined (as with the rumors surrounding Miel’s mother). This line near the opening of the novel frames the rumor that emerges from Miel’s rebirth from the water tower, which shifts and evolves into local legend, illustrating the pervasive power stories have in Miel’s world and the way they shape the perceptions of others.

“Without her, he had been nameless. He had not been Samir or Sam. He has been no one. They knew his name no more than they knew who this girl had been before she was water.”

This moment foreshadows the deep connection and codependency between Miel and Sam. Although both lived chapters of their life before they met, their lives intertwining represented a transformative rebirth for them both. The act of embracing his name displays how Sam’s relationship with Miel gave him the strength to acknowledge and accept his inner self, despite spending his early years in conflict with his outer self.

“The understanding settled on her that it was Sam, not that wooden-hilted brush, that held the magic of turning a vine-laced field into a thousand pumpkins.”

Miel’s realization provides one of the early hints of the novel’s overarching theme of Transformation. The narrative balances supernatural transformations with natural botanical or seasonal transformations like this agricultural practice. Here Miel realizes that scientific processes found in nature are a kind of magic as well, no less extraordinary for being rooted in the concrete world.