The Half Moon

By: Mary Beth Keane

From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a masterful novel about a couple in a small town who must navigate the complexities of marriage, family, and longing.

Malcolm Gephardt, handsome and gregarious longtime bartender at the Half...Read More

Experience: Hit Me Right in the Feels

Format: Hardcover

Genre(s): Literary Fiction

Page(s): 304

Published: May 2023

Rental Price: $9.99 for six weeks (List Price $28.00 | Save 64%)

From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a masterful novel about a couple in a small town who must navigate the complexities of marriage, family, and longing.

Malcolm Gephardt, handsome and gregarious longtime bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss finally retires, Malcolm stretches to buy the place. He sees unquantifiable magic and potential in the Half Moon and hopes to transform it into a bigger success, but struggles to stay afloat.

His smart and confident wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career. After years of trying for a baby, she is facing the idea that motherhood may not be in the cards for her. Like Malcolm, she feels her youth beginning to slip away and wonders how to reshape her future.

Award-winning author Mary Beth Keane's new novel takes place over the course of one week when Malcolm learns shocking news about Jess, a patron of the bar goes missing, and a blizzard hits the town of Gillam, trapping everyone in place. With a deft eye and generous spirit, Keane explores the disappointments and unexpected consolations of midlife, the many forms forgiveness can take, the complicated intimacy of small-town living, and what it means to be a family.

Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia, where she received an MFA. She was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing, and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Hemingway Society. She is the author of The Walking People, Fever, and Ask Again, Yes--a New York Times bestseller and a Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Summer Reads Pick. Ask Again, Yes has been sold in twenty-two languages. She lives in New York with her family.

"Absorbing . . . it's such a pleasure to sink into Keane's quietly luminous prose . . . She manages to find the extraordinary grace in our achingly ordinary world." -- Janice Y.K. Lee, The New York Times Book Review

"Poignant . . . class differences underlie personal strife as the couple struggles with adultery, fertility and civility." -- Bethanne Patrick, The Los Angeles Times

"Deft, satisfying. . . . Keane writes in a realist vein-the vivid, domesticated world of Anne Tyler, of William Trevor, of Elizabeth Strout--but her insights into matters of the heart, longing and restlessness especially, have astonishing delicacy." -- Vogue, Most Anticipated Books of 2023

"An insightful, riveting study of marriage." -- People

"Keane's prose is luminous and controlled, brimming with insights into her nuanced characters . . . a gripping read with an unexpected and satisfying resolution." -- The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A tale of midlife musings on second chances." -- TIME

"Once again, Keane mines the family strife and secrecy that made her absorbing Ask Again, Yes one of the bigger book-club breakouts of the last several years. Here, a full marriage story is compressed within the span of a single week as charming, gregarious bartender Malcolm and his conscientious lawyer wife Jess confront the longtime fissures in their union and the many dreams deferred." -- Entertainment Weekly

"I adored this compelling, touching, exquisitely crafted story about a marriage in crisis." --Liane Moriarty, New York Times bestselling author of Big Little Lies

"A quick and impactful read that will stay with you long after you finish it." -- The Skimm

"Keane explores the sacrifices of a marriage, setting Malcolm's impulsive deal to buy the bar he loved against Jess's consuming dream of parenthood. . . . The tension is undeniable and deeply compelling . . . with an unexpected twist, Keane's charming, tautly-paced, and introspective novel will delight." -- Booklist (starred review)

"Mary Beth Keane writes to the heart of the human heart. She shows us how love can deepen, how love can stall--hang in the sky like a half moon, waxing and waning in the same moment, equal parts shadow and light. I could not put this book down." -- Miranda Cowley-Heller , author of The Paper Palace