Starlight and Moonshine
by Joseph O'Malley
Joseph O’Malley’s Starlight and Moonshine begins with a news story about a fatal traffic accident involving an unnamed drunk driver. This is followed by the obituary of the victim, Hannah Fallon. The novel is about the aftermath of the accident, each chapter from the point of view of one of the members of her family.
Her son Jack left school not long after his mother’s death, just before graduating from high school. Now, ten months later, he works in maintenance at Sinai Hospital, where he cleans SICU, the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.
Colleen’s shoplifting.
Mary’s holding up the best, clubbing and dancing whenever she can.
James, Hannah’s husband stopped coming home after work a few months after her death. Instead, he goes to the racetrack, where he sits in the dining lounge and reads.
Then there’s Addy, James’s older sister, the character I found most interesting for the way she passively aggressively inserts herself into the grieving family.
She’s always inserted herself into the family. She and James lost their mother when they were young, their father drank—and Mary escaped to Detroit as soon as she could. James followed, moving in with her when their father died.
According to Addy, “It was the best time of our lives. Detroit was really alive in the fifties. We ate, we danced, we sang.”
Until James fell in love with Hannah.
And Addy could not let him go.
She came for dinner at least three times a week, she insisted being a part of every family event. Worst, she criticized Hannah every chance she got. To her face, behind her back, blatantly, passive aggressively.
Poor James. He didn’t have the courage to tell her to back off, allowing for an untenable situation that contributed to Hannah’s drinking and now complicates his and the children’s ability to find balance and move on from her death.
I had a family member similar to Addy and know all too well the toxic effect people like this can have. At the same time, I see the loneliness from which this kind of behavior so often stems. The way love can be spoiled when one can’t or won’t consider what their loved ones need or want, instead persisting in the assumption that they know best (for everyone). Thus, what feel like good deeds to them, performed in love are received in resentment—making everyone feel terrible.
They mean well, we often say of people like this.
And mostly they do but all too often leave a trail of unhappiness behind them.
Starlight and Moonshine moves in and out of time, playing the various threads of the Fallon's’ family life like music throughout and pulling them all together in the last chapter, in which Hannah tells the story of what happened the night of the accident.
The book shows with great tenderness how the grief of family members can run parallel, making it difficult—if not impossible—to find comfort in one another.