The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh

Publisher: Crown, Random House USA
Release Date: March 4 2014
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher

After their mother's probable suicide, sisters Olivia and Jazz are figuring out how to move on with their lives. Jazz, logical and forward-thinking, decides to get a new job, but spirited, strong-willed Olivia, who can see sounds, taste words, and smell sights, is determined to travel to the remote setting of their mother's unfinished novel to say her final goodbyes and lay their mother's spirit to rest.

Though they see things very differently, Jazz is forced by her sense of duty to help Olivia reach her goal. Bitter and frustrated by the attention heaped on her sunny sister whose world is so unique, Jazz is even more upset when they run into trouble along the way and Olivia latches to a worldly train-hopper. Though Hobbs warns Olivia that he's a thief who shouldn't be trusted, he agrees to help with their journey. As they near their destination, the tension builds between the two sisters, each hiding something from the other, and they will finally be forced to face everything between them and decide what is really important

I found the the characters of The Moon Sisters a bit difficult to pin down. The author has put many issues in the book: Olivia's synethesia, a condition in which the senses blend, so that sounds are also seen, sights are also tasted, and so on.To give you an example: her mother smells like the sun, her grandmother sounds like the movement of flour  There's the writer's journey/struggle, experienced through memories and letters left by their mother, Beth, who seemed to also be dealing with Depression and deep hurt from her own family of origin. There's disability, because Olivia has deliberately damaged her eyesight and so is legally blind, partially sighted. There's dealing with grief and self-blame in the wake of Beth's death; there's train-hopping and a bit of romance, a tattooed man and a bounty hunter, an unfinished fairy tale, a scenic tour of West Virginia and the bogs...

The most strongest part of this book is mostly the part where they get involved with Hobbs and their search for the last letter . But what i think slowed the story down where the first parts of every chapter, which contained mostly a letter by Olivia and Jazz's mother to her own father. Then mostly followed a trip down memory lane by Olivia or Jazz, which point of view was alternating every chapter either, and then the actual story continued. What I also liked was how the author decscribes what it means to have synethesia.

Altough this book wasn't my personal favorite, I am sure this book will gain a wide reader's audience, and it will be passed on from daughters to mothers, and it will certainly be a good book club pick. It also is a good crossover between YA and fiction, so it will gain many readers in different age ranges.

 

 

 

A conversation with Therese Walsh, author of The Moon Sisters

 

 

What inspired The Moon Sisters?

A few years back, while toying with a story I’d eventually abandon, I wrote a scene involving a bog and a blind girl and a will-o’-the-wisp light. It was one of the few scenes I missed when I decided to tuck that story into a drawer, and so I pulled elements out of it and into a completely new tale.

A blind girl. A bog. A ghost light.

 

 

The Moon Sisters is the story of a young woman’s quest to find a will-o’-the-wisp light, because seeing one was her recently deceased mother’s unfulfilled dream. Also called “foolish fires,” these ghost lights are sometimes seen over wetlands and have a whole mythology of their own. They’re thought to lead those who follow to treasure, but they’re never captured and can sometimes result in injury and even death for adventurers. The metaphor of that fire—that some dreams and goals are impossible to reach, and that hope itself may not be innately good—eventually rooted its way into the tale as this young woman, Olivia Moon, and her sister, Jazz, try to come to terms with real-life dreams and hopes, and with each other, in their strange new world.

The story has a more personal meaning for me, too, as my father passed away when my youngest sister was still a teenager. Grappling with death and the very meaning of life has been something my two sisters and I have struggled with, individually and collectively, since that time.

 

One of your two main characters, Olivia Moon, has a condition called synesthesia. What compelled you to write about synesthesia? What did it bring to your story?

I put an article about synesthesia into a story ideas folder many years ago. It seemed an intriguing topic to explore via fiction—this notion that sensory areas might intermingle in ways most of us don’t experience, so that a person might taste sounds or smell sights.The character of Olivia Moon evolved out of the idea of synesthesia. I think in many ways her personality reflects some of the aspects of the condition itself: She is colorful, unique, spontaneous, and a big proponent of the idea that there are typically at least two ways to look at things. Ultimately, both the condition and the character set the stage for one of the book’s big themes: altering perceptions. For example, when Olivia meets new people, she relies upon her synesthetic senses to take their measure. We see an important instance of this when Olivia meets a tattooed train hopper named Hobbs. Though Hobbs warns Olivia that he can’t be trusted, she relies on his voice—not only how he speaks and what he says, but the shape of his voice—to determine his reliability.

The Moon Sisters is set in the state of West Virginia. Why did you make that choice?

For a few reasons. Here’s a quick story: When I traveled to West Virginia in order to research this book, I took the time to talk with people when I could. One conversation stands out in my memory, which took place when I visited an exhibit on the history of music in Appalachia. The woman I spoke with, who was part of the organizational team for the event, seemed apprehensive when I first mentioned that I was writing a novel set in her state.  As the conversation progressed, and she realized I wasn’t interested in propagating stereotypes about toothless hillbillies, she admitted how protective she and her fellow statesmen felt about their homeland and how they didn’t often open up to outsiders because of the cutting preconceived notions people have about West Virginia. It’s human nature. We erect barriers to defend ourselves.  

That trip, and that conversation, confirmed for me that West Virginia was exactly the right setting for the book. I needed a location that felt a little wild, filled with bogs and swamplands and forests, where you might walk mile after mile without seeing another person. But beyond the suitability and beauty of its landscape, the setting of West Virginia supported the themes of perception and self-protection via defense mechanisms in The Moon Sisters. 

 

You’re the cofounder of a popular writing site called Writer Unboxed. Has being involved with the site affected your writing life at all?

Writer Unboxed is a big part of my life; I manage the site, which has been around since 2006, and I help to oversee a Facebook community of over 5,000 writers. And though it might be said that it affects my writing life the most in terms of the time required for its upkeep, it’s more relevant to say that the people involved with Writer Unboxed inspire me continually—not just via the daily essays on the blog, but through the stories of struggles and triumphs that come through our Facebook group. The writing life can be a lonely one, but a true community of writers makes it anything but solitary.

 

How did the experience of writing The Moon Sisters compare to that of writing your debut?

I’d always heard that the second book is the hardest to write, and I hate to be typical but I did find that the five-year journey to complete The Moon Sisters took more out of me than my debut, which I worked on for six years. I honestly think knowledge of the book industry had quite a lot to do with that for me. When you’re writing a first book, you may know something about the industry, but you’re on the outside of it and so you have a certain amount of (blissful) ignorance. The second book is written with a full awareness of the industry—its expectations and realities, for better and worse. In a perfect world, the creative and business sides of a writer’s life would be separated, but that’s not easily done once you’ve been published.

All of that aside, I have a fierce love for The Moon Sisters—a greater love for it than for my debut, probably in part because of the challenge I felt in writing it. It stretched me as an author, and helped to prove something to myself about perseverance and commitment in difficult times. If I never pen another book, I’ll be glad that I finished this one; it’s the truest thing I’ve ever written.

 

 

 

Visit Theresa Walsh on www.theresewalsh.com