Bones of the Moon

Cullen and Danny James live in New York City with their infant daughter. Their happy marriage has been preceded by misfortune, sadness, and tragedy. They meet in college. Danny is dating and then marries Cullen's roommate. The roommate dies in a car accident. Danny, a college basketball star, moves to Europe and plays professionally for Milan. Cullen works in New York publishing, become pregnant by a German photographer, and has an abortion. She writes Danny, who rushes back to New York to be supportive. They fall in love, marry, and move to Europe. Danny's career ends after his knee is shattered. They return to New York. Cullen gives birth to Mae. Alvin Williams, the teenage boy who lives below them and with whom Cullen has a nodding acquaintance, kills his mother and sister with an axe.

When she sleeps, Cullen has dreams that are disturbing mostly because of their continuous narrative. She travels to Rondua, a fantastic realm where she and a young boy named Pepsi travel the land with a giant camel and a dog in a hat. Carroll conjures an endless supply of peculiar places and funny names for what Cullen and Pepsi encounter in Rondua. They are on a quest to gather the five bones of the moon.

Back in New York, Cullen has attracted the amorous attention of an avant-garde film director and begun to receive letters from Alvin the Axe Boy. He considers her his only friend.

Where might all this be heading? You are right to ask. Pepsi is crucial to the future of Rondua, but as they are about to embark onto a pink ocean in a boat made from an overturned hat, Cullen reflects on the depleted emotions that pervade their group. Perhaps they have become "inured to wonder." I know how she felt.

So many authors hold Carroll in such high esteem that I plan to read more of him. But even as the narrative accelerated toward the end, I kept thinking this was The Wizard of Oz for readers who halfheartedly wanted to be adults.