What happens to the dreamers and the hard-luck cases, the washed-up lovers and the wild-eyed children when life gets messy?
Here is a novel-in-stories with a structure as raw and unexpected as the characters who inhabit it. Paul, the child of an ostracized Jewish pig farmer, searches for meaning in the most unexpected places— from the bottom of the local swimming pool to the galley of a Navy battleship. Along the way, we crack open the private lives of his parents before and after their divorce, and get to know his brother, who spends time in a mental institution. We ride shotgun with Hitch, a wannabe musician who walks out on his terminally ill wife. Trish, a single mother in a backwater town, celebrates her disabled son’s birthday. The threads all weave together in the near-operatic final story, “The Year of the Horse,” a harrowing account of a mysterious young boy living in a Russian village.
This unconventional and disarming set of interconnected stories about people stranded in spiritual quicksand, swimming against life’s empty promises, will find its way under your skin. Papa on the Moon digs deep, a starkly etched fever dream about everyday heroes scraping across the rock bottom of regret, love, and loss, climbing toward life’s most simple beauties.
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: This is a novel with a circuitous plot that readers will find easy to get lost in. Just as the plot seems to be coming together, North opens up new crevices that will leave readers breathless and unnerved.
Prose: North’s prose is brilliantly layered, with lyrical interludes that elicit the novel’s darker themes. Readers will immediately be swept into the storytelling and find themselves questioning the meaning of certain elements long after the last page.
Originality: North’s distinctive narrative sets this novel apart, delivering a raw, organic script that will unite readers in their search for significance.
Character Development/Execution: The story’s characters are composed of rough angles and pain, but they will elicit emotions readers recognize in themselves. North takes a backroads approach to character development through subtle innuendo and soft hints—a style that matches the novel’s uniqueness perfectly.
Date Submitted: August 19, 2022
A collection of cunningly conceived, poetically descriptive tales with layer upon layer of intrigue.
There is so much deep observation and reflection in these stories and such rich depth, yet relatively few words. A novel-from-stories like this is a challenging undertaking at the best of times and I admire North's ambition and the success of that ambition even more.
