Second Novel Syndrome Destroys Another Author

The Almost Moon--By Alice Sebold.

April 14, 2008

Little, Brown, 2007; 291 pp.

Reviewed by Alison Andrews

I feel for Alice Sebold, because when she wrote this book, she was obviously suffering from Second Novel Syndrome.

Her first novel, The Lovely Bones, was a No. 1 bestseller. It sold millions of copies, and book clubs everywhere discussed this beautifully written book in which a young girl is raped and murdered by a serial killer at the beginning of the book, but--here's the kicker--goes on to narrate the rest of the novel from heaven. Despite its grim premise, The Lovely Bones manages to focus on the good parts of life that Susie misses, and the family members who must learn to move forward beyond their grief. I found it haunting and poignant, if a bit far-fetched in places (for one thing, the description of heaven as a school playground was a little odd to me). Though it begins with death, it celebrates life.

When a writer bursts out of obscurity with a highly-acclaimed book, though, everyone eventually starts asking, “She did it once, can she do it again?” Early in The Almost Moon, it becomes clear that Sebold hasn't lived up to her first novel. Not even close.

Repetitive Violence

Where did Sebold's creative process begin to go wrong? For starters, it seems she thought, “I started with a graphic murder before; now I'll do it again.” It may not have been so blatant, but here's the opening sentence of Moon: “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily.”

That's an arresting first sentence; I'll grant her that. The problem is, Helen Knightly's murder of her mother is not so easy for the reader. For me, identification with Helen and her overwhelmingly negative feelings toward her mother just never occurred. Sebold wanted us to think, “Yes, it's awful that she killed her mother, but given those circumstances, I can see how it happened. She was driven to it.” In reality, I didn't feel sorry for Helen because I just didn't like her. I didn't find any redeeming qualities in her, despite Sebold's strenuous efforts to flesh out her character with episodes from the past.

I once read that the most important thing the writer needs to create in a novel is a likable narrator. If that's true, then that's the reason for my lack of engagement with The Almost Moon. Helen isn't likable; not only does she kill her mother, but she also does other morally repugnant things in the aftermath of the murder. I could see that we were supposed to feel that her grasp on ordinary reality had “snapped” and that she was suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, but I had no empathy for her. My experience of the book was fated to be a negative one from then on. Helen doesn't convince us that she loves anyone or anything (including her two daughters), and that's a character most people don't want to spend any time with.

Fully Commit to the Theme

Maybe the real problem is not that Sebold went too far, but that she didn't go far enough. When I was in a fiction-writing class, other students would write stories containing actions meant to shock, yet despite how much they piled on the gore, their stories left the readers unmoved. The professor explained that when you get started with an idea, to make it work, you have to fully commit to it and use it in virtually every paragraph, whether it's using run-on sentences or violence. Not that I particularly enjoy reading a book like that, but when it's done right, it can be powerful.

For an example of an extreme case of a horrific mother-daughter relationship, see Every Day Is Mother's Day by Hilary Mantel. In this black comedy, Mantel doesn't attempt to explain the insanity and cruelty and slyness exhibited by her mother and daughter characters, but she portrays it in such a vivid, original way that any explanation would be superfluous.

By contrast, all of Sebold's efforts to portray Helen's mother Clair as a monster who created her murderer fall short of the mark. Clair comes across as a narcissist with a mean mouth who responds to Helen's news of her first pregnancy by saying, “You're throwing your life away, you know that?” Helen's mother is certainly unpleasant, but nothing here explains the matricide.

Diagnosis: Crazy

One of the functions of the novel, it seems to me, is to illuminate the truths of human interactions. If Helen is as mentally ill as her mother--and really it seems to me that she must be--there is no reason to write this book, since every case of mental illness has its own rules and insane logic that make it nearly impossible for us to empathize. (That must be the reason Thomas Harris didn't make Hannibal Lecter the narrator of his novels.) As Michiko Kakutani writes in her review for The New York Times, “It's hard to write persuasive, complex novels or movies or television episodes about mentally ill killers. Too often the explanation for their crimes is simply that they're crazy….” Since Sebold doesn't have the dark gift of making a murderer interesting, she should try something completely different in her next novel. Maybe she could even write a book in which no one gets killed.

ninetyandnine.com

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Alison Andrews lives near Ft. Worth, Texas, with her husband and two young children. She is always looking for a new favorite book.