With the grace of a natural storyteller, debut novelist Pamela Duncan crafts a mesmerizing tale of family and love, revelation and forgiveness. Beautifully wrought, deeply affecting, Moon Women is a resounding portrait of three generations of remarkable women, separated by a secret only one of them can tell. In the lush North Carolina foothills, the Moon women have put down roots: matriarch Marvelle Moon, who’s starting to lose her grip on the world after more than eighty years of life; her middle-aged daughters, Ruth Ann and Cassandra; and Ruth Ann’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Ashley, fresh out of rehab, unmarried, and three months pregnant. Despite Ruth Ann’s best efforts to live a life that’s all her own, her family is coming together around her. Marvelle and Ashley need a place to live and Ruth Ann is unable to turn either of them away; and her womanizing ex-husband has been coming around again, dredging up the past. Now a flurry of outbursts, emotions, and outrages is shattering Ruth Ann’s separate peace. And as this flawed family comes together, so, too, do the stories of the people Ruth Ann thought she knew best. For here is Ashley, who has spent nineteen years running furiously away from home, now finding herself on a strange journey with her unraveling grandmother. And here is Cassandra, protected by layers of obesity and loneliness, wondering how to put magic back in her life. And Marvelle, slowly losing touch with reality, privately contemplating the story of her life and the secret that would change everything for everyone — if they only knew.... By turns fierce and tender, harrowing and heartbreaking, Moon Women resonates with emotional power, holding us captive under its beguiling spell. It is an astonishing debut from a powerfully original new voice in contemporary fiction. Add newcomer Duncan to your reading list of Southern women writers. Set in western North Carolina, this first novel follows three generations of Moon women during the months of granddaughter Ashley's unplanned pregnancy. While both male and female characters resonate, this novel is definitely about the women as they struggle with relationships, roles, and their place in the world. Dialog is true to the region, and intertwined throughout are 80-year-old matriarch Marvelle's memories of her family and its secrets. Duncan expertly demonstrates that ordinary lives are worth illuminating. Her novel should make her mentor, author Lee Smith, proud and provide strong competition to another new regional novelist, Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler). Strongly recommended for all fiction collections. - Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Ruth Ann Moon's life has just taken a turn for which she isn't quite prepared. Divorced, alone, and set in her ways, Ruth Ann reluctantly agrees to take in her 19-year-old daughter, Ashley, who is just out of rehab. On their trip home from the rehab hospital, as Ashley breaks the news to her mother that she is three months pregnant, they find Marvelle, Ruth Ann's mother, in the middle of the street. Now into her eighties, Marvelle is losing her grip on reality and demanding to live with Ruth Ann. Cornered, Ruth Ann agrees, and now three strong-willed, independent women are about to live under one roof. So begins the saga of three generations of Moon women as they adjust to the new stages in their lives--Ashley, unmarried and pregnant; Ruth Ann, no longer living alone and hounded by an ex-husband who wants her back; and Marvelle, coming to the end of her life and holding a secret that could affect them all. A touching story about what it means to be family. Carolyn Kubisz Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “ Moon Women contemplates what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister. Beyond even those themes, it's wonderful to read a writer who captures the setting and personality of North Carolina so honestly, passionately, and triumphantly.” — Creative Loafing “In the tradition of Fannie Flagg and Rebecca Wells comes a Southern-fried debut.... Duncan shows promise as a from-the-heart quirky storyteller.” -- Publishers Weekly “Impressive ... The Moon women, old and young, are great ones for musing, and Duncan deftly handles multiple points of view as they present their hardships and joys in richly textured reminiscences.... Leisurely pace and authentic southern voice: a pleasure to be savored, by a writer to watch.” — Kirkus Reviews “Reading Moon Women is like falling into a feather bed — you’ll want to snuggle in, settle down, and stay right there until you have turned the last wonderful page.” — Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies “Irresistible. Once these Moon women start talking, you can’t stop turning the pages of this extraordinary, beautifully crafted novel.” — Angela Davis-Gardner, author of Forms of Shelter and Felice ce of