About the Book
The story of Cliff Emerson, a man with cerebral palsy and a big heart but no voice, and his friendship with Ayo, a new caregiver who listens differently-and takes big risks to help him feel more human.
Cliff's unheard narrative, told from his perspective, traces the history of his care, from his time in the state hospital to his move into the group home where he has lived for twenty years. Though it was designed to help him grow his independence, his group home program often fails him. His staff are lazy and complacent and their superiors aloof and unobservant. It seems like Cliff's the only one who sees this-until the day that Ayo starts.
Ayo is new not only to Cliff's home but to America. Where he came from and why he left are mysteries. He doesn't like to talk about it much. But his optimism, like his smile, is infectious, and Cliff soon learns to trust him. For Cliff, it is a revelation, being understood by someone without having said a word. All that was required was willingness and patience, things staff haven't given him in a long time. As Cliff begins to see himself through Ayo's caring gaze, he starts believing that he deserves and is able to live a life as full as anyone's. The challenge is convincing those in power of this truth.
Reminiscent of Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this novel is unflinching in its portrayal of disability care and also, more broadly, of life in America. It is touching and darkly comic, at times bordering on the absurd. But at its core, it is the story of a man in search of something meaningful in a time and place opposed to his whole being, and yet who, with Ayo's help, manages to maintain his sense of dignity and personhood-and, for the first time, to taste real freedom.
About the Author :
Josh Cook received an MA in English from Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis in 2009 and an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University in 2021. While earning the former degree, he found work in the Medicaid Waiver program, where he served individuals with developmental disabilities for more than a decade, first as a support staff, then as a program manager, and finally as a case manager. His experiences in these positions inspired the writing of Another Crescent Moon, one chapter of which functioned as his MFA thesis. He has presented original scholarship on Shakespeare and F.R. Leavis at research conferences, and his short fiction has appeared in journals including Across the Margin, Fiction Kitchen Berlin, Idle Ink, Dissonance Magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and Sage Cigarettes. He also teaches college-level writing. It has been his great pleasure to demystify the writing process for anxious students and to see their confidence in themselves and in their own voices grow. In August 2023, he will begin teaching at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas, where he will live with his wife and two dogs. His hobbies include reading philosophy and history, and his heroes are Kurt Vonnegut, Franz Kafka, Malala Yousufzai, and Socrates.
Review :
Another Crescent Moon focuses on the bravery that comes with facing obstacles and the victory of daily survival. Like the moon itself, people wax and wane and shine bright in the darkness. Cook's deft hand delivers compassion, humor, and heartbreak in an effortless style that reads easily and brilliantly.
- Mathieu Cailler, author of Heaven and Other Zip Codes, winner of the L.A. Book Festival Prize
Everything in this book, every scene, its whole cast of characters, has etched itself into my mind. This has never happened before with any story I've read. That I so vividly remember virtually all of the book's content tells me it's an exceptionally memorable story. I think part of the reason it's so completely imprinted itself on me, is that the story really isn't fiction, but is a fictionalized account of experienced reality, and of a reality not commonly observed or depicted. This is a book I am unlikely to ever forget.
The story is narrated by its main character, Cliff, whose inability to speak, or even to get a finger to point to the right letters on an alphabet board to spell out what he wants to say, in no way prevents him from perfectly comprehending inwardly the world he tragically inhabits. Cliff is an incisively sharp observer and narrator, as any good reader will quickly discover.
Cliff lives in a group home with three other men. They are routinely mocked and carelessly treated by their so-called caretakers. Due to maladies and awful luck, they are in effect captives in a thoroughly uncongenial environment. Only one character, Ayo, a recently hired caretaker, comes to understand Cliff, by being an acute observer, and by always correctly associating cause with effect. Ayo in fact comes to understand Cliff as well as if Cliff could speak, and does everything he can to stand up both for him and his fellow captives, and to try to ensure they receive the kind of treatment they are due. The inmates' other custodians--the behaviors of some of whom made me think they needed caretakers themselves--do not take kindly to Ayo's efforts on behalf of their charges, and gang up to defeat them.
This book's raison d'être is to lend a voice to all those most desperately in need of advocacy. Interspersing its text are the brightest flashes of humor; you can be certain of Josh's ability to amuse. But his indisputable knack for humor never overshadows the book's central and overriding plea, expressed with genuine passion, that people helplessly isolated and cut off from the world by inherited or acquired misfortunes, be treated with the same respect and commiseration due to every human being.
If you like books that make a passionate appeal for compassion and decency, it is impossible that you will be disappointed by this one.
Five stars from me. This book should be read.
- Tom Merrill, author of Time in Eternity
