Title: Where the Moon Isnt' Author: Nathan Filer
Published: November 5, 2013
Genre(s): Realistic/Contemporary
Page Count: 310
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back...
What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person. Unafraid to look at the shadows of our hearts, Nathan Filer's rare and brilliant debut Where the Moon Isn't shows us the strength that is rooted in resilience and love.
I was somewhat mislead about this book. Reading the jacket copy, I was under the impression that Where the Moon Isn’t (The Shock of the Fall in the UK) was about paranormally stuff and/or magical realism, not mental health issues. If I’d known, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. Not that there’s anything wrong with books on mental health; it’s just that I don’t tend to rush to read those particular stories.
Where the Moon Isn’t is narrated by Matthew, a 19-year-old schizophrenic. Filer presents the book as Matthew writing down his story conversationally, always addressing the reader. I have always found breaking the fourth wall to be an unpleasant experience, and this book was no different. So that’s one count against the book already. Additionally, the narrative jumps around a lot, often without notice or transition. While this is a good way to portray how Matthew’s mind works differently than the average person, it also gave me a bit of a headache, as puzzling through the nonlinear narrative was both confusing and frustrating.
I also didn’t really care for Filer’s prose here. Matthew’s voice is very distinctive and quirky, but the writing present in this book sometimes felt stiff or inaccessible. It was easy to start skimming the story because I wasn’t arrested by the plotline or the characters. I found the book progressed slowly and exhaustingly, rather than in an engaging way. It was something of a slog to reach through.
Additionally, Filer does dance around things quite a lot, which makes things tiresome. He hints at the beginning that Matthew is dealing with mental health issues, and that 10 years ago, his brother Simon died. The particulars of both those things are not revealed until the final few pages. So often, because the narrative didn’t explicitly state the main “tension” of the book (as it were), I would get annoyed. It was like Where the Moon Isn’t didn’t want to be upfront about being a book about a schizophrenic and his dead brother; it played coy. And I don’t think that coyness was a good choice here.
So, I was expecting a ghost story, but that’s not what I got. In a sense, Matthew is haunted by his dead brother, but…not actually. Where the Moon Isn’t could be considered a ghost story, but an atypical one, where the ghosts are invisible and inside your own head. That’s kind of an interesting way to look at it, I guess. But even so, I wasn’t really impressed with Nathan Filer’s work here.
