cover image Forgive the Moon

Forgive the Moon

Maryanne Stahl. New American Library, $12.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-451-20633-6

Every year, Amanda Kincaid vacations on Long Island with her extended family. She's there again this year at the start of Maryanne Stahl's thoughtful if belabored novel Forgive the Moon, but things are different: her mother is dead, her husband has stayed at home in Atlanta and her college-age daughter is living with her boyfriend in Boston. Only her 10-year-old son, Damien, is still by her side as she mulls over her rocky relationship with her husband and her memories of her schizophrenic mother. A romance with a local doctor provides a bit of relief, but Stahl doesn't let her protagonist slip into an easy happy ending.