Please Don't Come Back from the Moon(ISBN=9780156031677)
/ 2011-12-01
"When I was sixteen, my father went to the moon." Thus beginsthis debut novel about the mysterious disappearance of the men froma working-class suburb of Detroit. They go gradually, one by one,leaving for parts unknown—though more than one mentions the rockyorb up above. Michael Smolij's father is one of the last to vanish;once he's gone, Michael's musician mother plays "Norwegian Wood" onher violin, then takes two jobs to make ends meet. Michael, likeall the boys in the neighborhood, has to grow up fast, working atthe mall while taking community college courses. When Michael'smother remarries and moves away, leaving him the family house,Michael lands a job as a writer at a local radio station and startsdating a single mother with a five-year-old son, as if in anattempt to singlehandedly forge a new family for himself. Theprocess of settling down, however, awakens a strange restlessnessin him. Magic serves more as an emotional undercurrent than amystery in this odd novel, part fable and part gritty realist
¥72.60