Another Crescent Moon focuses on the bravery that comes with facing obstacles and the victory of daily survival. Like the moon itself, people wax and wane and shine bright in the darkness. Cook's deft hand delivers compassion, humor, and heartbreak in an effortless style that reads easily and brilliantly.
- Mathieu Cailler, author of Heaven and Other Zip Codes, winner of the L.A. Book Festival Prize
Everything in this book, every scene, its whole cast of characters, has etched itself into my mind. This has never happened before with any story I've read. That I so vividly remember virtually all of the book's content tells me it's an exceptionally memorable story. I think part of the reason it's so completely imprinted itself on me, is that the story really isn't fiction, but is a fictionalized account of experienced reality, and of a reality not commonly observed or depicted. This is a book I am unlikely to ever forget.
The story is narrated by its main character, Cliff, whose inability to speak, or even to get a finger to point to the right letters on an alphabet board to spell out what he wants to say, in no way prevents him from perfectly comprehending inwardly the world he tragically inhabits. Cliff is an incisively sharp observer and narrator, as any good reader will quickly discover.
Cliff lives in a group home with three other men. They are routinely mocked and carelessly treated by their so-called caretakers. Due to maladies and awful luck, they are in effect captives in a thoroughly uncongenial environment. Only one character, Ayo, a recently hired caretaker, comes to understand Cliff, by being an acute observer, and by always correctly associating cause with effect. Ayo in fact comes to understand Cliff as well as if Cliff could speak, and does everything he can to stand up both for him and his fellow captives, and to try to ensure they receive the kind of treatment they are due. The inmates' other custodians--the behaviors of some of whom made me think they needed caretakers themselves--do not take kindly to Ayo's efforts on behalf of their charges, and gang up to defeat them.
This book's raison d'ªtre is to lend a voice to all those most desperately in need of advocacy. Interspersing its text are the brightest flashes of humor; you can be certain of Josh's ability to amuse. But his indisputable knack for humor never overshadows the book's central and overriding plea, expressed with genuine passion, that people helplessly isolated and cut off from the world by inherited or acquired misfortunes, be treated with the same respect and commiseration due to every human being.
If you like books that make a passionate appeal for compassion and decency, it is impossible that you will be disappointed by this one.
Five stars from me. This book should be read.
- Tom Merrill, author of Time in Eternity
