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The Moon's Wife: A Hystery
A.A. Attanasio, award winning author of Radix, Wyvern, and Hunting the Ghost Dancer, has created an astonishing contemporary adventure and spellbinding love story that probes the mysteries of the feminine, sweeping us from depths of darkness to dazzling realms of vision and light.
A young bookkeeper in upstate New York, Sigrid Lindo is painfully aware that her life has narrowed down to working a dull job and caring for her widowed mother, when she steps out on Tappan Down to hear the moon's velvet voice asking her to be his wife. It is a seduction Siggy will resist with all the stoic reason and practicality she has learned from her beloved father. But the moon's gift of glamour is powerful and beyond her control.
Siggy subjects herself to psychiatric tests to discover the cause of the sudden erotic awakening that has begun to color her everyday life. In a Manhattan clinic, a tiny brain anomaly is detected. But the moon will not be denied. Determined to convince her of his reality, the man-in-the-moon takes up residence in the body of Daniel Schel, a handsome young poet with a dark and bloody past who becomes the moon-in-the-man. Caught between the demon-ridden clinic and the moon's ecstatic rapture, Siggy is befriended by two elderly volunteers who claim to be devotees of the moon. They offer Siggy the skills she needs to control her newfound powers. As forces of darkness gather strength, Siggy makes her choice, fleeing from the hospital with Daniel.
From an eccentric enclave in Brooklyn to an idyllic bower atop a Riverside Drive apartment building, Siggy and Daniel savor the rarest love. But as Siggy's magical powers grow, Daniel's powers begin to wane and Siggy is swept into a timeless ritual and an ancient battle. For she cannot escape the fateful confrontation that will fulfill the strange secret of her destiny and reveal the stunning truth of what it means to be the moon's wife.
A young bookkeeper in upstate New York, Sigrid Lindo is painfully aware that her life has narrowed down to working a dull job and caring for her widowed mother, when she steps out on Tappan Down to hear the moon's velvet voice asking her to be his wife. It is a seduction Siggy will resist with all the stoic reason and practicality she has learned from her beloved father. But the moon's gift of glamour is powerful and beyond her control.
Siggy subjects herself to psychiatric tests to discover the cause of the sudden erotic awakening that has begun to color her everyday life. In a Manhattan clinic, a tiny brain anomaly is detected. But the moon will not be denied. Determined to convince her of his reality, the man-in-the-moon takes up residence in the body of Daniel Schel, a handsome young poet with a dark and bloody past who becomes the moon-in-the-man. Caught between the demon-ridden clinic and the moon's ecstatic rapture, Siggy is befriended by two elderly volunteers who claim to be devotees of the moon. They offer Siggy the skills she needs to control her newfound powers. As forces of darkness gather strength, Siggy makes her choice, fleeing from the hospital with Daniel.
From an eccentric enclave in Brooklyn to an idyllic bower atop a Riverside Drive apartment building, Siggy and Daniel savor the rarest love. But as Siggy's magical powers grow, Daniel's powers begin to wane and Siggy is swept into a timeless ritual and an ancient battle. For she cannot escape the fateful confrontation that will fulfill the strange secret of her destiny and reveal the stunning truth of what it means to be the moon's wife.
234 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
A.A. Attanasio
47 books362 followersI’m a novelist and student of the imagination living in Honolulu. Fantasies, visions, hallucinations or whatever we call those irrational powers that illuminate our inner life fascinate me. I’m particularly intrigued by the creative intelligence that scripts our dreams. And I love carrying this soulful energy outside my mind, into the one form that most precisely defines who we are: story.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 12, 2008
Would you like to have an orgasm with the man in the moon?
May 16, 2013
The best thing I liked about this story is that, at the end, it's unclear whether or not the events actually happened as written, or if Siggy, the narrator, was just out of her mind/unreliable the whole time.
April 22, 2024
It was a decent book with lots of twists but the ending was not to my liking. I'm still not sure if it was all in her head.
January 23, 2014
Not too long ago, I read an interview by Elizabeth Hand where she talked about her inspiration for Waking the Moon which was published about the same time as this novel. She mentioned that "there was a lot of empty-headed New Age goddess stuff" going on at the time she was writing it. And while this isn't entirely empty-headed, (I've read much, much worse from that era) it's a bit more apt of a description than I'd like to admit.
Attanasio is trying to set up some ambiguity as to whether the magic is really happening or whether it's just a delusion brought on by a brain abnormality. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work for me. I wish that aspect of the book was a bit more ... artful? I'm not sure that's the right word... There's some segments where the only answer seems to be that magic as real and other sections where the only possible answer seems to be that it's a delusion. But there's very little where both explanations appear equally valid. I just wish there was more ambiguity within individual scenes rather than ambiguity brought about by some portions of the book thinking one thing was true and other portions saying another thing is true.
Attanasio is trying to set up some ambiguity as to whether the magic is really happening or whether it's just a delusion brought on by a brain abnormality. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work for me. I wish that aspect of the book was a bit more ... artful? I'm not sure that's the right word... There's some segments where the only answer seems to be that magic as real and other sections where the only possible answer seems to be that it's a delusion. But there's very little where both explanations appear equally valid. I just wish there was more ambiguity within individual scenes rather than ambiguity brought about by some portions of the book thinking one thing was true and other portions saying another thing is true.
January 10, 2017
It's a no from me.
Although there were some interesting quotes -
"One does not travel to the house of Hades lightly," Daniel murmured. "We trespass hell whenever we go into ourselves, either through depression, as with me, or by being snatched out of life like you, like Persephone. We go to hell whenever we seek our souls or they claim us for the home of their failures."
Although there were some interesting quotes -
"One does not travel to the house of Hades lightly," Daniel murmured. "We trespass hell whenever we go into ourselves, either through depression, as with me, or by being snatched out of life like you, like Persephone. We go to hell whenever we seek our souls or they claim us for the home of their failures."
March 7, 2012
a strange sort of love story, often grotesquely overwritten and occasionally insulting (namely due to the author's treatment of modern witches), but interesting overall.
(3/11/06)
(3/11/06)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews