When I stood up I could not see my mother. She was not on the beach, and when I looked back across the water she was not there either. I asked, or was about to ask, where she had gone when I saw something floating a little way off, not far from the shore. In the icy elongated moment that followed I could neither move nor hear nor speak.
A woman wakes from a coma, its cause unknown.
She refuses to see her family; she does not say why.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, she becomes stronger.
Now she will walk.
Where?
Walking to the Moon, Kate Cole-Adams’ enthralling, seductive first novel is both a psychological journey and a piercing exploration of abandonment and loss. A work of striking subtlety and maturity, it is without doubt the start of something special.
andWalking to the Moon
‘A beautiful novel about the things that matter—love, loss and courage.’
‘It’s not until after a full first reading that the solid form of the novel coalesces and the subtle beauty of each passage, each deftly crafted image, becomes apparent…Cole-Adams’s elegant prose is a kind of alchemy, turning the ephemera of loss, abandonment and a coma into finely spun gold.’
‘Cole-Adams writes evocatively, melding places…into an exploration of Jess’s inner world…Walking to the Moon is a deeply thoughtful and at times engrossing book. And the timbre of the prose is quite gorgeous—simultaneously tough and tender.’
‘This temporal, contemplative examination of loss and healing…rewards slow and careful reading. … Cole-Adams captures beautifully [the] twilight world that exists somewhere between sleep and wakefulness with language that is so languid, at times it seems lifted from a dream. …the pieces start to fall quietly into place to celebrate the resilience and recuperation of a woman reclaiming control of her life. The result is deeply rewarding and there are moments of sheer beauty along the way.’
