Moonshadow
While I had to write this review some time ago I was mildly inconvenienced by my computer to attempting to self-destruct, requiring a substantial and expensive rebuild, various life events and the return of Covid19 lockdowns to my country. It’s been some interesting times.
Let’s start with the disclaimers. I do happen to know the author in real life. I’m actually better friends with her sister who features in a chapter but Emma is the one who hit me with a boat one time. We were young, sailing with our respective fathers and she ‘happened’ to ram us with their Frostbite, costing us that particular race and the series win. There would have been a trophy. I like trophies. I did not get that trophy.
So although I may have sat down with Emma prior to this book being launched to discuss publishing advice and industry inside information I probably wasn’t much help. After all, I have people who do all that stuff for me. All I have to do is write the damned words.
I am so grateful I have people. I’d be useless at the other side of it. It looks really complicated and rather like work.
Enough trying to make this about me.
Emma wrote a book. Writing a book is hard, because once you do so many people come up to you and tell you they are also writing a book, want to write a book or are thinking about maybe writing a book. Very few of them ever do.
Writing a book about how the way Emma did it is much harder. Because it’s true.
On the cusp of enjoying family life as a new mother, Emma’s life takes a sudden turn after her husbands terminal cancer diagnosis.
Autobiographically based around contemporaneous writings of Emma Eaglen during her husbands illness and as a young widow, ‘Moonshadow’ is carefully crafted to create a narrative about love, guilt and grief. Blunt, honest and with a focus on resilience - this memoir is unique as it is hopeful.
I didn’t read any of Moonshadow’s essays or poems or recollections before Emma published, the only advice I dared to give her was the often repeated cliché, ‘write as though no one will ever read it.’ The risk of self-censoring when publishing looms is very real, especially with such intense subject matter. I remember turning each page wondering when she was going to stumble and sugarcoat or play down her truth. Because her words come across as very raw and unfiltered consciousness, sometimes blunt but always honest. Experience is a very subjective and often traumatic thing, very few people ever experience something the same way or can agree on it afterwards. It’s a privilege to gleam an insight into such a private and personal time in a family and an individual’s life. I would strongly encourage anyone who appreciates a well written memoir, someone seeking the human experience, or has touched on a relatable time in their lives to pick up a copy of Moonshadow. It is well written, you’d expect nothing less from an English teacher, and it is captivating and engrossing, but also, I hope I never have the need to write anything like it.