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The Moon Down to Earth
Beautiful people always get what they want.
Elizabeth Salas, single, middle-aged, and mostly confined to her room, lives in a faceless city in the American Southwest. She has little hope for the future. And then a young man named Jace Jason walks through the door…
Elizabeth Salas, single, middle-aged, and mostly confined to her room, lives in a faceless city in the American Southwest. She has little hope for the future. And then a young man named Jace Jason walks through the door…
- GenresNovelsLiterature
401 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
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April 7, 2023Video now available: https://youtu.be/7R672WIPAbg
January 20, 2021
As a brief preamble, I will say here that Mr. Nulick is a friend of mine, and about a year ago he asked me to read THE MOON DOWN TO EARTH is pre-published form with the intention of maybe having me supply a blurb for it at the time. This was the blurb I ended up writing (which appeared in the final book in a slightly different form):
"'Novels need human beings.' So wrote Yasunari Kawabata, and if there’s something that James Nulick’s novel THE MOON DOWN TO EARTH has in spades, it’s human beings, in all their multifold, messy complexity. By the end I felt as if I knew them intimately, from their musical tastes to the smell of their pillows. These desperate women and men aren’t just living on the edge, they’re dissolving in the singularity; the lapsarian wasteland of 21st century America. What prevents the book from being an exercise in miserablism is that Nulick allows a frail, fungal numinosity to glow through the cracks."
At the time, in private correspondence with Mr. Nulick, I told him that I really enjoyed the novel, that I liked the characters a lot and its overall trippy tone, but that it was also somewhat bleak: my exact words at the time were “god though, I thought my book was a downer, but next to yours it seems as bright and happy as a K-Pop album." He agreed with me to some extent but also pointed out that there were examples of joy and comedy as well, and that's something that I saw in greater detail on this second reading of the novel: I think that's what I meant when, in my blurb, I mentioned a "frail, fungal numinosity." It probably didn't help matters that during this reread our family dog has been sick and maybe even dying!
Anyway THE MOON DOWN TO EARTH takes place in a neighborhood called North Hill, in a city named Río Seco in the American Southwest, and concerns itself with a small number of characters. There's a Mexican woman named Elizabeth Salas, age 43, a former teacher turned social worker who is grotesquely overweight and living with her cruel mother in a mobile home in a trailer park: she's seriously depressed and her health is breaking down. Their next door neighbor, an elderly white racist named Robert Nelson, is a retired machinist and widow who is also depressed and dying. Elizabeth falls in love with Nathan "Jace" Jason, a 23 year-old half-black/half-Asian/half-German (?) (let's just say his ethnicity is complex and I might be getting a little confused here, ha ha) pizza boy and aspiring musician who is pretty much the main character. Other characters include Jace's girlfriend Nicole and also the friends he lives with: Mouse, Baby and Peanut. Mr. Nulick weaves all of these individual points of view and disparate voices into a compelling and dramatic psilocybin mosaic, and I can only marvel at his skill in making even the most banal everyday objects (like surge protectors) seem interesting.
To wrap things up, my first impression of the book remains unchanged: I think the real tragedy at hand here is that while all of the characters agree that there's no real difference between the races, at the same time they remain unable to look past the surface of other people's races, despite the fact that in some ways they're more similar than they'd care to admit (indeed, to provide just one example, some of Jace and Nelson's internal observations are direct echoes of each other's thoughts). And although the novel's eyes seem to be set on the moral failings of present-day America, its heart beats to the sacred rhythm of a transcendent and alien cosmos.
"'Novels need human beings.' So wrote Yasunari Kawabata, and if there’s something that James Nulick’s novel THE MOON DOWN TO EARTH has in spades, it’s human beings, in all their multifold, messy complexity. By the end I felt as if I knew them intimately, from their musical tastes to the smell of their pillows. These desperate women and men aren’t just living on the edge, they’re dissolving in the singularity; the lapsarian wasteland of 21st century America. What prevents the book from being an exercise in miserablism is that Nulick allows a frail, fungal numinosity to glow through the cracks."
At the time, in private correspondence with Mr. Nulick, I told him that I really enjoyed the novel, that I liked the characters a lot and its overall trippy tone, but that it was also somewhat bleak: my exact words at the time were “god though, I thought my book was a downer, but next to yours it seems as bright and happy as a K-Pop album." He agreed with me to some extent but also pointed out that there were examples of joy and comedy as well, and that's something that I saw in greater detail on this second reading of the novel: I think that's what I meant when, in my blurb, I mentioned a "frail, fungal numinosity." It probably didn't help matters that during this reread our family dog has been sick and maybe even dying!
Anyway THE MOON DOWN TO EARTH takes place in a neighborhood called North Hill, in a city named Río Seco in the American Southwest, and concerns itself with a small number of characters. There's a Mexican woman named Elizabeth Salas, age 43, a former teacher turned social worker who is grotesquely overweight and living with her cruel mother in a mobile home in a trailer park: she's seriously depressed and her health is breaking down. Their next door neighbor, an elderly white racist named Robert Nelson, is a retired machinist and widow who is also depressed and dying. Elizabeth falls in love with Nathan "Jace" Jason, a 23 year-old half-black/half-Asian/half-German (?) (let's just say his ethnicity is complex and I might be getting a little confused here, ha ha) pizza boy and aspiring musician who is pretty much the main character. Other characters include Jace's girlfriend Nicole and also the friends he lives with: Mouse, Baby and Peanut. Mr. Nulick weaves all of these individual points of view and disparate voices into a compelling and dramatic psilocybin mosaic, and I can only marvel at his skill in making even the most banal everyday objects (like surge protectors) seem interesting.
To wrap things up, my first impression of the book remains unchanged: I think the real tragedy at hand here is that while all of the characters agree that there's no real difference between the races, at the same time they remain unable to look past the surface of other people's races, despite the fact that in some ways they're more similar than they'd care to admit (indeed, to provide just one example, some of Jace and Nelson's internal observations are direct echoes of each other's thoughts). And although the novel's eyes seem to be set on the moral failings of present-day America, its heart beats to the sacred rhythm of a transcendent and alien cosmos.
February 9, 2021
I don’t think I’ve come across a writer who beautifies the grotesque as well as James Nulick. I was first introduced to his short stories in Haunted Girlfriend, and was entranced by what I perceived as incantatory lullabies, a humming that comforts in the midst of a hailstorm. Frankly, I can’t find the words to adequately describe The Moon Down to Earth. But I can assure you that Moon is as unforgettable as it is unpretentious.
Moon is shrouded in contrasts and dualities. Elizabeth Salas, immobile and compliant with the demands of chronic pain, finds hope in the eyes of a young man nearly as tall as herself, but with feet that carry him over farther distances. It’s clear that the perceptions of these individuals differ in regards to their relationship. Jace is Elizabeth’s younger man, while Elizabeth is a platonic friend whom Jace’s girlfriend spits contempt at. What is likely innocent is criminal. At least to the neighboring widower, a victim and victimizer choked by his tears of self-pity.
Reading Moon was a challenge, in that I didn’t want to drink it up too soon. I wanted to taste the grit, the bitterness of Nulick’s dialogue that alerts you like black coffee. It’s definitely a work worth rereading, a basis for discussions on race relations, public education, and the stigma attached to those limited by meager paychecks and the collateral ugliness that often comes with a state of disability.
Moon is a great example of how great things require time and patience. It wasn’t written in months, nor a year or two. It’s truly a work of experience, built from resilience and refined by a lack of apology. Rarely will you find a novel that cries so loudly, but at perfect pitch.
Moon is shrouded in contrasts and dualities. Elizabeth Salas, immobile and compliant with the demands of chronic pain, finds hope in the eyes of a young man nearly as tall as herself, but with feet that carry him over farther distances. It’s clear that the perceptions of these individuals differ in regards to their relationship. Jace is Elizabeth’s younger man, while Elizabeth is a platonic friend whom Jace’s girlfriend spits contempt at. What is likely innocent is criminal. At least to the neighboring widower, a victim and victimizer choked by his tears of self-pity.
Reading Moon was a challenge, in that I didn’t want to drink it up too soon. I wanted to taste the grit, the bitterness of Nulick’s dialogue that alerts you like black coffee. It’s definitely a work worth rereading, a basis for discussions on race relations, public education, and the stigma attached to those limited by meager paychecks and the collateral ugliness that often comes with a state of disability.
Moon is a great example of how great things require time and patience. It wasn’t written in months, nor a year or two. It’s truly a work of experience, built from resilience and refined by a lack of apology. Rarely will you find a novel that cries so loudly, but at perfect pitch.
March 12, 2021
This is an incredible book that I've looked forward to reading ever since I read James Nulick's Haunted Girlfriend.
You don't find characters as compelling as the ones James writes very often.
It's only the beginning of 2021 (March) but I predict this will be in my top 10 list of fiction I read for the entire year.
Buy this book and support indie literature and unfettered creativity.
You don't find characters as compelling as the ones James writes very often.
It's only the beginning of 2021 (March) but I predict this will be in my top 10 list of fiction I read for the entire year.
Buy this book and support indie literature and unfettered creativity.
April 5, 2021
FFfffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews