The Almost Moon Contest

ALICE SEBOLD’s The Almost Moon begins with the narrator, Helen Knightly, confessing that she has just killed her mother. The events unfold in a span of just twenty-four hours with the dexterity and skill needed to engage and sustain the reader so that the history of the protagonist’s life comes across effectively to tie into the present. Sebold manages to surprise with the ending, but it is one which leaves little room for judgement or debate.

Its first line, “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily,” already grabs the reader’s attention, not unlike the introduction of Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones (2002). Sebold continues to shock and intoxicate in her new novel about matricide―not just a crime novel, but one that unravels the often unfathomable layers of family, love and loss. In between her addictive, crisp narration of the sometimes horrific, unexpected events, Sebold inserts philosophical musings of Helen Knightly and prompts the reader to consider the greyness in between moments when morality and reality clash, that nothing is ever black and white in life―not marriage, not family and certainly not murder.

In conjunction with the release of Sebold’s The Almost Moon (October 16, 2007), I have a copy of the new novel to give away to the first person with all the correct answers to the following questions pertaining to the author. Email your answers to mphpublishing@mph.com.my. Oh yes, the contest is opened only to those who live around this neck of the woods (so that I can pass the book to you by hand in case you win). So tell me where you are writing from. Good luck!

Questions
1. Name all the books that Alice Sebold has written.
2. Who does Helen Knightly murder in The Almost Moon?
3. How many children does Helen Knightly have?
4. Which novelist is Alice Sebold married to?

Closing Date October 31, 2007

Book courtesy of MPH Distributors