cover image Clair de Lune

Clair de Lune

Jetta Carleton. Harper Perennial, $14.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-208919-9

Arriving nearly 50 years after her bestselling debut, The Moonflower Vine, Carleton’s (1913–1999) second novel is a witty and romantic portrait of a young Midwestern woman coming to grips with adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it. Miss Allen Liles, fresh out of college, is bound by expectations. Her dream is to venture to New York City and become a writer, but because that is far from practical, she takes what her mother believes is the safest path: a teaching job at a junior college. Wanting to do more than just get by, Allen decides to make her mark on the institution by teaching a seminar on the modern American novel. When Allen forms a strong bond with two of her students, continuing to discuss literature with them outside of the confines of the classroom, and then falls for one of them, she risks everything for love, which makes Carleton’s novel appear to be just another tale of a woman’s fall from grace. Luckily, it’s much more than that. While some of Allen’s mid-book interactions with secondary characters may seem extraneous, in the end, every character serves a purpose. Moreover, there are notable similarities between Allen’s America of 1941, and the America of today. (Mar.)