A Year of Full Moons [Hardcover]

Madelyn M. Arnold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2000

Brilliant, tomboyish Josephine Margaret Butler-better known as Jos-is the second oldest child in a large, poor family living in provincial Summit, Kentucky, in 1963. After her mother has a miscarriage and retreats into herself, Jos and her sister Ellie are faced with the responsibility of running the household and taking care of their siblings and their decidedly eccentric, sometimes brilliant, and always difficult father. The nation's mounting tensions over civil rights and the Vietnam War finally begin to infiltrate Summit at the same time that Jos begins to act upon her secret passion for women. During the course of this eventful year, Jos realizes that only one thing-her intellect-can provide escape from the stifling family dynamic and small town in which she is trapped.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This odd, engrossing roman à clef by Madelyn Arnold, whose 1988 debut, Bird-Eyes, has been recently reprinted, begins slowly, in a Kentucky springtime in 1963, with a confusion of major and minor characters crossing the page. Jos Butler, a 15-year-old tomboy, has just set off fireworks perilously close to her face, rupturing her eardrum and giving herself second-degree burns over much of her body. One of seven children in an unlucky family--her mother suffering a prolonged, incapacitating grief over a dead baby; her father too unstable to hold a job--Jos is becoming aware of the ways that her older sister Ellie is beginning to soften herself in her bid for Southern womanhood. Jos can't imagine not running through the streets of their small town, though, or having to wear a bra. When she catches sight of a disdainful, mannish horsewoman at the Memorial Day parade, her crush is almost immediate, and that night she dreams of witches around a fire in the woods: "Suddenly one saw her and they came pouring after her waving thick withes the width of a finger or more, screaming derisively after her what they'd do when they laid hold of her. She ran in panic, but it was a pleasurable panic. It was like she didn't want to get away."

Although the affair with Peg, the sadistic horsewoman, is deftly rendered, Arnold is not at her best in the description of Jos's budding desires. What emerges far more strongly is the tainted innocence of white liberals in the South in the early '60s, who risked either Klan violence or the appearance of complicity with the racist teachers, town officials, and policemen who were working together to enforce the color bar. Jos has already made herself conspicuous by taking chemistry--a class for boys--and by confronting the racism of her biology teacher, whose text is the Book of Genesis. What will happen if she casts a black student as the lead in a play she is directing? This is a moving and rewarding novel for those who can make it through the first 50 pages. --Regina Marler

About the Author

Madelyn Arnold is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the novel Bird Eyes and story collection On Ships at Sea. She lives in Seattle.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312199651
• ISBN-13: 978-0312199654
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,039,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breath-taking!, October 11, 2004

By 

RB (TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Year of Full Moons: A Novel (Paperback)

I have read this book three times and bought it as gifts for many of my friends. If you are looking for something fast-paced, adventurous, warm and funny- look no more. This book has it all. You'll find yourself having trouble putting it down!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Year of Full Moons, July 23, 2001

By 

"assya" (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Year of Full Moons (Hardcover)

~This book is at times strange, confusing and increadably infuriating and at times sweet and even joyful. This certainly wouldn't be a story I would give to my parents to make them understand better about me being a lesbian, and it does contain some sex so I wouldn't recommend it to kids, either. The language is at times really confusing but I found it better towards the end (I'm not exactly sure whether I myself got used to it, or it's just that the first chapters were written with a lot less~~ experience than the latter ones). Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book since even beyond all her cynicism the heroine still had the sort of excuse I guess for her darkened vision of this world and she showed times and times again that she can be quite tender and loving.~