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The New Moon’s Arms

by Nalo Hopkinson

What to call Nalo Hopkinson’s new novel? Entertaining, for sure, but is it fantasy? Magic realism? An ecological cautionary tale? Or is it first and foremost the story of a tough, smart, funny, fiftysomething woman who is trying to come to terms with the mistakes she made in her life? Maybe all of the above, because Hopkinson, previously known mostly for her science fiction, has put together a rollicking novel with something for nearly every taste – provided the reader is willing to suspend disbelief a bit.

Cayaba, the island where narrator Calamity Lambkin lives, is imaginary, though the monk seals that are supposedly the island’s big tourist attraction are not. Hopkinson gives us a world so densely imagined that even though some very strange things happen, it is easy to fall under Calamity’s spell, to believe she is telling it just like it is.

Calamity had a daughter when she was 16, and though she fights with her a lot, she dearly loves her grandson. She was estranged from her father for years, but cared for him during his long final illness. She rescues a strange, half-drowned child, then learns to regret what she’s done. She has a big mouth and “a big black ass,” yet men – even men who prefer other men – find her irresistible. In short, Hopkinson has created a complicated, contradictory character whose words made me laugh out loud more than once.

The book is far from flawless, however. Calamity’s down-to-earth observations are intercut with a mythlike story of a woman sold into slavery, and it’s not clear what the connection is. And there are many loose ends. What happened to Calamity’s mother, for instance? Maybe Hopkinson will tell us in another book. She’s certainly created enough characters and incidents to justify a Calamity Lambkin miniseries.

 

Reviewer: Mary Soderstrom

Publisher: Warner Books/H.B. Fenn

DETAILS

Price: $29.99

Page Count: 324 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-0-446-57691-8

Released: Feb.

Issue Date: 2007-5

Categories: Fiction: Novels