Man of No Moon
Issue #33
By Jenny McPhee (Counterpoint Press, 304 pages, $24)
By Lisa Brunton
Published: September 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
Much like the Neorealist Italian films of the 1940s that depict personal loss of innocence to real-world pressures, A Man of No Moon
Prudence and Gladys Godfrey are two almost-beautiful sisters who fall into the latter category. They meet Dante Sabato, an anti-fascist Italian survivor of World War II with a predilection for violence. He falls in love with both: Gladys for her submission to his sadistic sexual games and Prudence for her, well, prudishness. All three are scarred by his or her own distinct traumas, and the trio quickly become inseparable friends, each one using the other two as a prop for his or her own personal therapy.
At first, Dante seems a self-obsessed misogynist, but as in her two previous novels, McPhee once again challenges our preconceived notions about her characters. Underneath the moody film noir patina, she engages us to entertain our most perverse impulses. The sex scenes are hot despite being brutal and alarming.
Rife with philosophical questions, A Man of No Moon reflects the Neorealist opinion that, though we try to occupy ourselves with the beautiful and romantic, nothing is more titillating than the raw and uncensored.
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