Table of Contents
About The Book
From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a masterful and “absorbing” (The New York Times) novel about a couple in a small town navigating 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.
“A quick and impactful read that will stay with you long after you finish it” (theSkimm), The Half Moon 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, Mary Beth 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.
Reading Group Guide
Introduction
Malcolm is a longtime bartender turned owner of the Half Moon. His wife, Jess, is a successful lawyer. For years they’ve been trying to have a baby, but financial pressures and the ongoing struggle with infertility have caused rifts in their marriage. Malcolm wants to devote himself wholly to getting the Half Moon out of the red, but Jess is still attached to the idea of motherhood.
When a blizzard hits their small town and everyone is snowed in, shocking secrets emerge and the couple must confront some tough decisions, both together and as individuals. Set over the course of one week, The Half Moon is a powerful novel about a couple in crisis that asks: What does it take to save a marriage? To make a family? To forgive?
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. The novel opens with an epigraph from Louise Erdrich: “Right and wrong were shades of meaning, not sides of a coin.” How does this quote resonate with the themes of The Half Moon?
2. When making updates to the Half Moon upsets the regulars, Malcolm realizes that “people didn’t want things to be nice, they wanted them to be familiar” (page 7). Does this quote resonate with your experiences of change? Do you think it also applies to marriage?
3. In chapter two, Malcolm wonders: “What if they hadn’t gotten married so quickly? What if that baby had been born? It was like those Choose Your Own Adventure books he used to love as a kid, where you could follow a dozen different paths to a different conclusion, each road forking again and again” (page 48). Discuss these and other “what ifs” in the book (like what if Malcolm had told Jess about his deal with Hugh?). Does this make you think of any of your own “what if” moments?
4. Jess seems to know about—and be bothered by—Malcolm’s interest in fellow bartender Emma, but in Malcolm’s opinion, “interest wasn’t a crime. Nor was the way his belly tightened when he passed close to [Emma] in the narrow space behind the bar” (page 54). What can couples realistically expect of each other in a long, monogamous marriage? Where do you draw the line for what constitutes cheating?
5. After Jess miscarries at age twenty-five, the doctor tells her and Malcolm that up to fifty percent of all pregnancies, and between fifteen and twenty-five percent of known pregnancies, end in miscarriage (page 48). Did this statistic surprise you? How does society treat miscarriage? Is it something you and your friends or family are comfortable discussing?
6. As Malcolm and Jess discuss the finances of the Half Moon and fertility treatments, he tells her: “people like you and me—we can’t afford multiple big dreams. We can only afford one” (page 64). How does money impact the couple’s interactions? How can a relationship sustain conflicting goals and dreams?
7. What does Neil offer Jess that Malcolm can’t, and vice versa? Discuss the moment when Neil tells Jess: “The minute you make this decision, our lives will be better. . . . We can be a family” (pages 160–61). What do you think it takes to make a family?
8. What role do secrets play in the novel for Jess, Malcolm, and the patrons and employees of the Half Moon? When truths emerge, how do these characters handle the fallout? Consider the secrets that are kept: Why do you think Jess hasn’t told Malcolm about what happened in San Francisco? How much disclosure do you think we owe to a spouse or partner?
9. When Malcolm wonders whether he could forgive Jess, he shamefully recalls an encounter with another woman at the Half Moon. How do their various infidelities, big and small, impact their marriage in different ways? What does forgiveness look like for them?
10. On several occasions, Jess questions what she knows about Neil’s divorce, as she’s only heard his side of the story. What is your opinion of him? How much can we really know about someone else’s marriage?
11. On page 206, Jess thinks, “No need to decide anything because it was not real life, not until the snow melted and the power was restored.” How does the isolation caused by the snowstorm impact the events of the story? Do you think things might have ended up differently for Jess and Malcolm without the week of being snowed in? What about ifinstead of living in a small town, where everyone knows everyone’s business, they lived in a big city?
12. Discuss the quote: “To think that when they first said they loved each other, when they got married, when they bought the house and filled it with furniture and plates and bowls and lamps and all the clutter of domestic life, that all of that was aimed at a future they had no guarantee of reaching” (page 210). What should a couple do when the life they wanted together proves unachievable? How do couples decide whether to stay together or separate? Why do Jess and Malcolm make the decision they do?
13. In wondering who of their friends in Gillam would take her side over Malcolm’s, Jess thinks, “there were those who’d sympathize with following a temptation to its conclusion. There were those who would admire a woman who had a problem and did what she thought might fix it” (page 225). Did you sympathize with one more than the other?
14. Discuss the importance of friendship in the novel. How do Jess and Malcolm’s friends look out for them? What role do you think friends should have when a couple is struggling with their marriage?
15. What did you think of Jess’s plan for how she and Malcolm could start over? What would you have done in that situation? Were you surprised by how things ended up?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Read Ask Again, Yes, Mary Beth Keane’s multigenerational novel about two New York families, which is partially set in Gillam, the same small town as The Half Moon. What connections do you see between these two stories?
2. Set up a home bar and mix some classic cocktails or mocktails for your group. Or head to a local bar with your book club, perhaps even having your discussion there.
About The Author
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.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (May 2, 2023)
- Length: 304 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982172626
Raves and Reviews
“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
"One of our finest writers on the interior complexities of marriage and family shines a flashlight on the intricate clockwork of love and longing that runs inside us. Because of the thoughtfulness of that examination, beauty and possibility are visible. I ran my finger over sentences while reading, thinking: 'Yes, exactly.' This kind of fiction allows us to look around our own lives with respect and kindness and is therefore a great gift." —Ann Napolitano, author of Dear Edward and Hello Beautiful
“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
“The Half Moon is one of those rare novels that feels simultaneously classic and contemporary. Mary Beth Keane writes with exquisite detail about a marriage and a hometown, and accomplishes something remarkable: she makes you care about every character and see their point of view. The Half Moon is about the choices we make in who we love and how we love and when we need to come to terms with the past. I could not stop reading.” —Vendela Vida, author of We Run the Tides
"A quietly marvelous story of dreams, disappointments and second chances, but, mostly, love." —Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake
"Did you love Ask Again, Yes? Then you'll eat up this one, which is set in the same fictional town but tells an even more intimate family story, offering a close-up look at a long marriage tested by time and unrequited dreams." —Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink
"I fell in love with The Half Moon from the first page, and barely looked up until I'd finished. Mary Beth Keane has written another brilliantly absorbing novel about complicated marriages and family dynamics—how they shape us, yes, but how they undo us as well. Prepare to lose yourself in this book." —Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton
"The Half Moon is a masterful novel that tells with great tenderness how love goes wrong and how, with hope, it can be righted. Mary Beth Keane is an unnervingly talented novelist—dead-on brilliant, authentic, full of humor, and possessing a dark and comforting wisdom. The Half Moon is a triumph." —Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Half Moon eBook 9781982172626
- Author Photo (jpg): Mary Beth Keane Photograph by Martin Hickey(0.1 MB)
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