Guernica Editions

Laura Marello’s latest novel, Gauguin’s Moon, seethes with an intoxicating blend of wit, pathos, and hilarity that keeps us laughing even as it confronts us with disturbing truths -- both personal and political. Her narrator, Daniella, is a 40-year-old artist who wakes one morning to find her home invaded by her dead mother, dead aunt, and two dead lovers, “all stylish people -- my mother and Aunt Charlotte in the l940s, Upper West Side, Chanel / Houbignant, we’ve won-the-war-and-dominated-Europe sort of way; and Andrew and Elaine in the l980s, Laurel Canyon, Calvin Klein and Armani, greed-isn’t-good-but-it-looks-good sort of way.” Over the ensuing pages we move in and out of Daniella’s past, her dreams, and her artistic visions (half-reclining terracotta women, for example, who are “neither here nor there, like me”; a mysterious cliff-top doorway with a view of ocean and sky; a landscape of rain and fire). We follow her as -- aided and abetted by her dead companions -- she abruptly leaves the East Coast for California, delves into her past, and finally travels to Micronesia, where she begins to uncover the sources of her lifelong disorientation. Gauguin’s Moon is a book about the interweaving of life and art, the power of dreams and images, and our sacred responsibility for one another.

Gauguin’s Moon equates in style, invention, research and empathy with Margaret Atwood’s and Gail Godwin’s work. It has their imagination, and incisive self-examination. Young Daniella is visited by dead people: her mother, her aunt, and friends Elaine, and Andrew -- ancestors all, back from the dead, and visible to Daniella and her friend Sandy. Daniella accepts their help to find out more about the apocalyptic dream that won’t leave her. Images in her paintings begin to match experiences with a hydrogen bomb explosion in the Central Pacific’s Bikini Atoll, unleashed by the U.S. Government in the 1950s on a culture and ecosystem. Until she finds their source, these dreams frustrate her instincts for love and her sense of identity. In the end, Daniella finds out how self acceptance can be obtained.

This is a fascinating novel which spins an amazing web. Daniela remembers Gauguin: Be mysterious and you will be happy. Marello spins plenty of mystery, hallucination and romance. This roller-coaster of a novel is a page-turner that will keep you on your toes. Highly recommended!