Mountains of the Moon

There’s no denying that a lot goes down in I.J. Kay’s debut, much of it out of chronological order and narrated in a motley pidgin of London Cockney, regressive baby talk, and pop-song lyrics by an untrustworthy ex-con variously known as Kim, Beverly, Jackie, Dawn, and Catherine. That these ingredients make for a compulsively readable novel instead of a complete mess is almost entirely courtesy of the idiosyncratic heroine, whose real name is Louise Adler. Louise grows up in a nightmarishly abusive household, spends her teenage years in and out of institutions, and winds up working at a casino while fraternizing with a cast of shady characters like “the velvit gentleman,” doomed rich boy Quentin, and the desire-object Louise calls “the Oak Tree.” We know early on where it will all lead: to the spectacular, botched crime Louise confesses to and her subsequent journey to Africa in search of the moon -mountains of her childhood imagination—and where her life will depend on the skills she has picked up as a longtime survivor. But it’s the inimitable voice that Kay has worked out that makes Louise’s journey unforgettable, checkered with personal touches and a timbre of defiantly playful happiness that belies the deep sadness of her circumstances and the hard-boiled content of her flight from disaster to freedom. The novel’s impressive air of feminist noir and hard-knock psychological realism are merely molehills that the unusual (and personal) prose promotes to the scale of mountains. (July)