The Hunger Moon has a promising start – a young mother sets off on a cross-country drive with her infant son. She is running away from the father of her baby and a life that has her trapped. Just getting in a car and going…it’s one of the American Dreams. I think we all have had moments when escape beckoned. Most of us lost our courage, or regained our rationality, which makes reading about someone who does run away so appealing.
When the young mother, Renata, finally comes to rest, her life intersects with the lives of two other women: Eleanor, a seventy-eight year old widow and former judge, and June, a bulimic college student studying dance. For a while the three seem to complete each other. Then one is lost, and the other two flounder.
Suzanne Matson has a gift for finding beauty in the small details of ordinary lives. The descriptions of Eleanor’s bare apartment are especially striking. Eleanor is the most complexly drawn character, which is perhaps why the book falters after her exit.
The Hunger Moon deals with serious issues – eating disorders, unexpected pregnancy, aging, death, parental abduction – but these issues are never fully integrated into the emotional fabric of the characters. I didn’t understand why Renata feels such a strong need to leave the father of her baby or what June feels while she kneels in front of the toilet. Too much is explained, too little fully demonstrated. I wished that Matson dealt with emotions and motives as aptly as she deals with descriptions of motel interiors.
These characters have so much more to offer than what they are allowed to give.
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