Man in the Moon (review)

A shimmering hot Texas summer in 1961 finds Janine and her brother, Ricky, antsy for some sort of adventure to break the tension of their mother’s worry over their father’s lack of work. Ricky hits on the idea of building a go-cart with scraps from an abandoned truck full of trash, but an unnamed illness that has plagued him since birth flares, and the family despairs of his recovery. Meanwhile, a stranger has entered their lives: Mr. Lunas appears out of the cornfield and is welcomed by Daddy as the man who saved his life in the war. Mama is not as welcoming, thinking Mr. Lunas will eat them out of what meager provisions they have left, but her objections give way to abject grief over her dying son. It’s clear that Mr. Lunas has appeared to save Ricky just as he did Ricky’s father, but not until Janine does her part as well. The mystical presence of Mr. Lunas and his peculiar weight gain and loss over the course of the month turns a realistic family drama into a wonder tale about cycles of life and death, want and abundance. The connection between Mr. Lunas and the moon is obvious enough to make a good introduction for younger readers of the possibilities of symbolism and allegory in storytelling, and the theme of available help coming from odd places is comforting indeed.