Starlight and Moonshine
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In early 1980s Detroit, during the year following the drunk driving death of their alcoholic mother, a chorus of family voices grapple with haunting memories of the joys, regrets and the strains of love that will reverberate throughout all of their lives.
During a Detroit winter’s last snowfall in 1980, feeling fine after a few too many drinks, Hannah Fallon crashes her car through a cyclone fence and into an elm tree, leaving behind a messy wake of love and grief through which her family must wade in the year following her death. The story of the Fallon family, told in retrograde beginning a year out from Hannah’s death through the family members’ varying viewpoints, explores the humor, love, and rancor of a family grappling to keep their tight-knit bonds from unraveling. This elegy of family life under siege, written with Cheeveresque wit, clarity, and intensity, fulfills the promise of a long-awaited first novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In O'Malley's brilliant debut, a wife and mother's death after driving drunk shatters her family's placid surface in 1980 Detroit, laying bare their personality ticks and the rifts that formed over their lifetimes. The novel begins in the accident's aftermath, as O'Malley toggles between the perspectives of the late Hannah Fallon's family members, including her son, Jack, a recent high-school graduate; her daughters Colleen and Mary, both in their early 20s; her husband, James, once a dedicated father; and Addy, his busybody sister. Each chapter helps unravel the complexities of a seemingly ordinary family: from Hannah's longtime heavy drinking to the ways in which Addy encourages Jack to embody an idealized form of masculinity that doesn't fit him. Colleen and Mary cope with their mother's death by overeating and engaging in meaningless sex, respectively, while James retreats into books, reading the novels that Hannah filled with marginalia during her postpartum depression years earlier. O'Malley toggles between the perspectives of each family member, shining light on what they know about one another and themselves while also illuminating their blind spots. It's an exemplary domestic drama.
