The Pull of the Moon
A Novel
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4.2 • 97 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“This is not a novel about a woman leaving home but rather about a human being finding her way back.”—Chicago Tribune
In the middle of her life, Nan decides to leave her husband at home and begin an impromptu trek across the country, carrying with her a turquoise leather journal she intends to fill. The Pull of the Moon is a novel about a woman coming to terms with issues of importance to all women. In her journal, Nan addresses the thorniness—and the allure—of marriage, the sweet ties to children, and the gifts and lessons that come from random encounters with strangers, including a handsome man appearing out of the woods and a lonely housewife sitting on her front porch steps. Most of all, Nan writes about the need for the self to stay alive. In this luminous and exquisitely written novel, Elizabeth Berg shows how sometimes you have to leave your life behind in order to find it. the pull of the moon
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Elizabeth Berg's Once Upon a Time, There Was You.
Praise for The Pull of the Moon
“Breathtaking . . . [Berg] writes with wry wit and aching lyricism, painting her characters as vividly as anyone writing today.”—The Charlotte Observer
“When was the last time you thought about running away? . . . In The Pull of the Moon, Berg shares her strength, the wonderful widening of her soul so that we, too, can take the journey in the ease of our chair.”—Greensboro News & Record
“Berg’s gift as a storyteller lies most powerfully in her ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the remarkable in the everyday.”—The Boston Globe
“Reading The Pull of the Moon is like sitting down for a long, satisfying chat with a best girlfriend. . . . [It] pleasantly encourages readers to recover a little life-embracing enthusiasm themselves.”—Orlando Sentinel
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What (in Range of Motion) seemed an unerring touch for the emotional truths of women's lives proves imperfect after all for Berg, who misses the mark in this story of a wife and mother who runs away to find herself. In a plot device reminiscent of Ann Tyler's Ladder of Years, Berg's protagonist, Nan, impulsively leaves her Massachusetts home soon after she turns 50, hitting the road to find a new sense of direction. "I have felt so long like I am drowning,'' she explains in a letter to her husband, Martin, as she begins a car trip westward with no destination in mind except to "come into my own.'' She chronicles both the geographical terrain and her inner landscape in further letters to Martin and to her grown daughter, Ruthie, and in a journal that has the tone of an adolescent's diary. Women will empathize with Nan's fear of aging and her gradual realization of the resentment she has long felt about filling the role of dutiful wife, but the epistolary device strips the story of immediacy, and the situations Nan describes are often unlikely or merely tame (she has a noisy tantrum at a beauty salon when she decides not to dye her gray hair; she invites a stranger into her cabin in the Minnesota woods and, when they go to bed, they just cuddle). Nan's conversations with other women are overdosed with saccharine, and her epiphanies are old hat. Self-indulgent and cloying, this is a one-tone narrative with almost none of the dramatic resonance Berg's fans have learned to expect.
Customer Reviews
The Pull of the Moon
I read this book several years ago, and was looking for it to download to my iPad. I was a bit taken aback by the publishers weekly review, which really panned the book. I don't agree with them at all ... I thought it was a great book. I've read it several times, and when I finish I always vow to read it again next year. It seemed to touch my heart, and I related with Nan most of the time. This may not be a good book to a younger woman, but for anyone 50 or 60 or more, there is a lot to relate to. Perhaps the reviewer was younger, and has had a different type of experience from those of us who are a bit older. I would highly recommend to the more mature reader.
THE PULL OF THE MOON
This story is for anyone who has ever thought about jumping in her car and driving anywhere...destination unknown. Berg allows readers the chance to vacate their lives, if only briefly, to experience what they have only dreamed of doing: taking control of who they are and what they do. This is my favorite E. Berg novel. It left me asking the question: "What if?"