Mountains of the Moon

by I.J. Kay

A highly original novel about a young woman’s journey from shattered youth to self-discovery

After ten years in a London prison, Louise Adler (Lulu) is released with only a new alias to rebuild her life. Working a series of dead-end jobs, she carries a past full of secrets: a childhood marked by the violence and madness of her parents, followed by a reckless adolescence. From abandoned psychiatric hospitals to Edwardian-themed casinos, from a brief first love to the company of criminals, Lulu has spent her youth in an ever-shifting landscape of deceit and survival. But when she’s awarded an unexpected settlement claim after prison, she travels to the landscape of her childhood imagination, the central African range known as the Mountains of the Moon. There, in the region’s stark beauty, she attempts to piece together the fragments of her battered psyche.

Told in multilayered, hallucinatory flashbacks, Mountains of the Moon traces a traumatic youth and explores the journey of a young woman trying to transform a broken life into something beautiful. This dazzling novel from a distinctive new voice is sure to garner the attention of critics and readers alike.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Realistic Fiction, Literature, Contemporary, British Literature

368 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2012

About the author

I.J.Kay was born in Suffolk in 1961. She lives in Bristol and in The Gambia, West Africa, but favours a boat on which she writes and travels the waterways of England. In 2006 she took an MA (Creative Writing) with distinction from Bath Spa University. "Mountains of the Moon" is her debut novel.

Reviews

[Timothy Urban · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a blistering and intense first novel about a girl growing up in some pretty awful circumstances.

This is not, as some other reviewers point out, a straightforward read. There's a lot of shifting about on a timeline and there are characters you try to understand who might just disappear for a hundred and fifty pages.

But the prose is clear and playful, characters vivid. To enjoy this book you have to be patient as the jigsaw pieces fall into place. I felt it all worked well.

I was impressed by how the main character's voice changes so incrementally and so believably as she grows up. The main theme I took away, and there's a lot here to choose from, was about how low self-esteem can lead to having a pretty shabby circle of friends, and how shabby friends then, in a cyclical way, causes lower self-esteem. Just one good friend can make all the difference.

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote a very lengthy review that got swallowed by cyberspace. Sigh. I don't have the energy to reproduce it! Read this book, read this book, READ THIS BOOK! (One of the best this year!)

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary book. The writer, who has hidden herself behind her pseudonym, I.J.Kay (find her in the middle of the alphabetical book shelf), has almost produced a masterpiece. The book falls a little flat towards the end, but if you can forgive it that, then you have a great read here.

This book is unlike any other. The language is alive and thrilling. The characters are weird and extraordinary. At the centre is a girl, does she have a name? Is she several people? Even she doesn't seem sure. No one looks out for her, and she looks out for everyone. She is abused, amused, insulted and shot at. It's an extraordinary piece of writing. Sometimes you might feel you don't understand what's happening - just go with it. It's worth it. Unique. I loved it and I can't wait for something more from this truly gifted writer.

[Kacy Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I picked up this book, I felt like I was inside the skin of the protagonist. When I finished, it was as if I had lived her life and it took some time to re-acclimate to my own life. I wish this book had been longer.

[MissAnnThrope · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a playful pen name like I.J. Kay, how could I resist? Even though this is a dark tale of a troubled young girl, the author's quick wit and sense of humor still shines through. It had me hick-sick (as Lulu would say) in parts, but mostly I was amused with Lulu's cleverness. Mountains of the Moon is absolutely refreshing in its originality.

Please be patient while reading this book because it will reward you for your perseverance. It seems a lot of people have found this book too confusing to be enjoyable. It's not that difficult of a read, if you are aware of a few things. First, the story is not written linearly. It starts with the present day Lulu and then jumps back and forth from childhood to adulthood. Lulu's voice as a child is filled with slang and improper english. Once you differentiate Lulu's child voice and adult voice, it's not difficult to keep up with the story.

Lulu's story is hauntingly gripping. It disturbed me that I could relate to her on so many levels. I don't see the comparisons to Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Sure, Lulu has an abusive past like Lisbeth and there are some kick-ass moments. However, while Lisbeth is just an all around badass, I find Lulu to still be vulnerable and sweet and very relatable.

The story all comes together about three-quarters of the way through when you learn the truth of how Lulu's troubles began. I really like Lulu. Even through all of her hardships, she still has this sweet innocence about her. There is definitely a darkness within her, but she's still good-natured. She would be someone I'd love to be friends with.

I give Mountains of the Moon *** 1/2. There is a bit in the middle that drags a bit, and I found myself getting slightly bored. Otherwise, this is one of the most original books I've read this year and I highly recommend it. It's beautiful. It's sad. The writing is exceptional. It's a book that sticks in your mind days after you've finished it. Actually, give me a few more days of reflection and I will probably bump this up to ****.

[Ricki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book about two months ago, and it still resonates with me. I had a hard time giving this book five stars, but -- I'm still thinking about the book, so I had to.

This book is anything but easy reading. It's written in first-person and the narrator has a language of her own (I mean that literally -- she shortens many words and you have to get into the book a bit before you learn this new language). She's a youngish female living in poverty in England and when the book opens, has just come out of prison. The book alternates between her very young years, her teenage years, and the present. Slowly, you build a picture of her life. Slowly and painfully.

I think the writing is made painful for the reader -- it's just not something you can zip through -- to show how painful her life has been. I've read other reviews and there were a few horrendous things that happened to her that I did not even realize when I read it. You have to pay attention the entire time you're reading!

The narrator has an active imagination, so you need to sort through what is real and what is her fantasy. (That's actually easier than it sounds.)

I kept imagining her as a black girl -- we do find out she's very attractive; however, she's more likely a white girl. Her main escape fantasy involves Africa, which made me think she was black, or actually, mixed-race with a white mother and a black father. That, however, is just MY fantasy. Her mother, by the way, is horrendous.

I'm sure after having read this that you would not want to dive in. But here's the thing: When I finished the book, I searched online and read all the reviews. I even printed a few for my boyfriend to read. I did not want to let go! And months later, the book is still with me, off and on.

I've read a few books that stay with me, but in an icky way ("Last Exit to Brooklyn" is one). The story in this book is a tragedy, but somehow not depressing -- or at least not to me. You want to be her friend, you want to help her, you want to tell her that she's strong and will end up o.k.

If you have the time to read slowly, work at it, then I highly recommend this book.

[Nona Gooberdelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt so lucky to come across this book because great books like this are so hard to find.
For me, it's the full package of what I look for in a book. I love that the style is innovative.
I did not feel like it was hard to follow. Instead, I relished it and thought that it added to the pace of the book making it difficult to put down. The style was pivotal to the character's voice, evolution, and psychological insight.
I gravitate towards these kind of books that are about troublesome lives and relationships.
This is a book about a hard life. It can be seen as disturbing or rather(what I love about it) as raw and keen.
For me, the book was cathartic in a way that it put into words the insights that come along with severe circumstances like that in the story. These insights are not spelled out but the author rather trusts the reader to catch themas she carefully unfolds the story.
The character would not be of the personality to sentimentalize her story, instead she gives us
her story straight and yet also in a guarded way that you have to understand the underlying meaning.It is in this raw portrayal that does not go into melodrama, that the character shines through. She does not ask for sympathy. She unravels her story and leaves it to you to understand or not.
I think this book is also a great example of how to do an open-ended ending. This has become a frustrating issue for me concerning most fiction books today. It's become the "cool thing" to end a book inconclusively. But it's such a fine line to know how to do it well where it doesn't leave a reader frustrated. This book does it so well, where I love the ending even though it's not necessarily conclusive.
Good books are surprisingly hard to find.

[Kristy Alley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am having a hard time saying that I loved this book, but I think that I did. The writing is beautiful and haunting and the protagonist is agonizingly real, even though it's comforting to try to believe that she couldn't be. Because of the stream-of-consciousness style combined with the narrator's made-up but very British slang combined with jumping back and forth in time, I don't think this book is for everyone. But if you want to read something different and you don't mind letting go and following the narrator wherever she takes you, you might love it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just finished this book it is going to get 5 stars before the feeling begins to fade. Touched some deep places in the soul and was a real adventure building the story from the fragments presented from different times and places. Not poetry but with an almost-poetry feel. Somehow the Wasteland came to mind - "These fragments I have shored against my ruin" - and when I read it again I might try reading it out loud.

[LindaJ^ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. The main character and narrator - it is not clear what her real name is as she uses a host of names -- is fascinating. There is a linear story riddled with flashbacks that are not. By the time she is thirty, Catherine (or Lulu or Midget or Louise or Kim or whatever other name she picks) has experienced more abuse and adversity than most of us could ever imagine. She is a survivor and resiliant, managing to stay alive in situations perhaps even uglier than those the Girl With the Dragoon Tattoo survived. As the NY Times review noted, she shares many traits with Lisbeth, but, while very intelligent, she doesn't appear to be autistic. Her mother is completely nuts and her stepfather is sadistic. She loves her brothers - one older and one younger, with fathers different from hers. She doesn't always escape abuse, her mother often puts her in its path, but is damn resilient. At one point, when she is Muffin, she lives in an abandoned wing of a mental hospital for two years. She holds many jobs and has many skills -- blackjack dealer, jelly donut filler, mechanic, among them. As a child, she spends a few days in foster care before escaping. As a young woman, she spends a few years in prison, after admitting to shooting someone she did not shoot. She has a penchant for involving herself with people who take advantage of her. But, as I said, she is a survivor. In one job, she is injured and eventually receives a rather large compensation settlement. She uses that money to go to Africa for a few months, a place where her head has been since she was a child pretending to be a Masai warrior. This is a book that demands your full attention and does not disappoint.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though I read every word, I’m not quite sure I got all of Mountains of the Moon or even understood most of what was thrown at me. But it was very poetic and at times much like being an outsider watching/listening in on a conversation. A very unique story twisting between what seems like reality, memories and imagination coming to a resolution fitting for this very challenging character and the reader. I did like this complex storytelling, I’m just not sure I’d be up for a similar challenge again in the near future. ***Please note I received this book for free from Goodreads First-reads.

[jeannette ⋆ ੈ✩‧₊˚ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to win this novel through Goodreads First Reads! I must admit, this novel was intense and difficult to read. There was an abundance of characters and it was difficult for me to keep up. However, the emotions and the intelligence behind the plot were there. It's about a woman trying to deal with the misfortunes she's encountered throughout her lifetime, so the complexity just drove the story forward.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Won this off Goodreads. Fractured, layered, at times complex but for me mostly boring. I am not convinced this was my cup of tea but may re-read at a later date. I love authors like Virginia Woolf with the stream of consciousness novels that made her famous. However, for me, this first novel had me scratching my head at times and wondering do I really care about the central character? Still, grateful I had the chance to read this.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

L.M. NO

[BiblioPhil · Rating 5 out of 5]

My book of the year for whatever year it was. Astonishing first novel, poetic, harsh, thrilling. I've had a hard job persuading anyone else to be as enthusiastic, though.

[Sarah Dewsbury · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spent 2 weeks reading this book, and still not entirely sure what actually happened??? There’s a fine line between artsy writing and gibberish which I’m sorry but I feel this book crossed, it reminded me very much of reading catch 22 but without the GCSE study guide telling me what happened in each chapter

[kirstyandherbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please don't give up with this book! I put it down once and I am so glad I went back to it. The different voices of the main character and her very own way of speaking are confusing and hard to keep with at the beginning, but it soon clicks into place. Lulu (if that even is her actual name) grows up in an abusive household and dresses up as a Masai warrior to escape her bleak life. These parts are told in Lulu's unique vernacular, where sometimes the full horror of what is happening around her is not immediately clear to the reader until it's completely understood what she means. This seems to be a frequent criticism of this book but I believe it is actually it's real strength. Lulu's voice is so childlike and innocent as it reports these events that it has a real heart-wrenching effect. Although the voice is different in the other two narratives, i.e. Lulu (now known as Kim?) in her twenties living with a woman who keeps a horse in the living room and Lulu in her thirties as she leaves prison and travels round Africa, the little girl is still there in her voice, even though her speech is improved and she is a lot older. I J Kay perfectly, in my opinion, illustrates how traumatic past events can shape a person and continue to haunt them regardless of how far in life they have travelled. This is a gritty yet surreal tale of survival against all odds!

[Chan’s · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Reading the writings of I.J Kay debut novel is a roller coaster for me. Attracted to the story of Louise ( with a lot of her aliases ) who just got out from the prison, finding some new life out there. She managed to find her an apartment, a job at a donut factory and what’s more important, a way to go to the place she always heard when she was a lil child, the Mountains of the Moons of Africa. .
Yet again, the journey towards the Mountains is not absent by her tainted past. As the stories of her journey goes, the flashback of her childhood comes taunting her, withalong her past acquaintances visiting her life after she comes out of prison.
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The storyline is very complicated and need patience for you to enjoy. The flashbacks of her past might be confusing for you ( at least for me ) since in the beginning it doesn’t let much about what really was happening at the past. But as the story developed, you can read, see and feel that what you read is not just a woman starting a new life, but a story of a woman with a past not knowing much who she was, and trying to escape the ‘supposed’ life for her for her own freedom and how she achieve it with her own skills of life ( and imagination of her ). How she met her acquaintance, and live with them, how she felt love and reacted toward love.
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Overall, I really hated, but at the end loved the book. I hated it for the confusing storyline yet loved it at the end when the story made sense and how it unraveled the story of Louise. I love it at how complicated yet interesting way of writing, especially when you know that this is her debut book. I enjoyed it, and hope you will too.
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📜 Favorite Quotes📜
📝 We are becoming victims of our own success, can’t really cope with such large groups but days like today make us proud, working together as we do. .
Rating : 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

[Haley Parmenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up as a Halloween decoration. I liked the binding and thought it looked good on a shelf. I had no intention of reading it, until I realized the beginning had characters framed like a play. It took me a minute to realize the format of the book was wonky. Not like a play at all, more like the memoir the no one wanted to write about themselves because it's too painful to remember when you're forced. I laughed, I cried, I felt used, I felt numb. I'll reread this book again.

ON ANOTHER NOTE
I think anyone who has given this book a 1 star has led an extremely sheltered life and can't finish or understand this book because they can't relate and simply can't imagine life beyond a rat race. This book was extremely heartfelt, and I think it exhibits what it means to be a human. If you didn't understand the point of book, I suggest you re-read the epigraph. It tells you the whole story in 2 perfectly correct English sentences, if that's the only type of prose you understand.

[Johanna Markson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mountains of the Moon, I.J. Kay
A tough and harsh book. Tough to read because so sad and disturbing, and also at times, tough to follow. The voice is compelling and so is the story but its sometimes hard to know who is talking - the child Lulu or Louise the adult. Both are the same person slowly telling the strange and unusual story of this girl who suffers much under the thumb of a domineering mother and violent father, who then must continually survive on her own as a young teen, and who must rebuild her life after being released from prison at 31. Much to recommend the book because the story and main character stays with you, and the language is breathtaking and beautiful at times. Often you want to reach out and encircle Lulu with your arms, many times you want to cheer her on. Ultimately, you are left wondering what will become of Louise, so burdened by her past.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mountains of the Moon is written in a stream of flashbacks across differently periods of the protagonist’s life. The opening of the book sums up the novel best “People with nowhere to go do go, they go somewhere and somewhere else after that. They go somewhere else in the physical; somewhere else in the mind.” I love quote. Lulu/Catherine/Louise travels both in the physical and mental throughout the book. While I found it to be slow at times, I appreciated the overall narrative and was intrigued by the characters’ story and the experiences that drove her actions and shaped the landscape of her life.

[Louisa Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A girl escapes from her violent & alcoholic childhood home by pretending to be a Masai warrior in the vacant lot behind the house because of a book her grandfather showed her. She makes a treehouse where she can protect her younger brother. A birthday treat is being able to go to school. You follow her through her flashed-back childhood and later life in juvenile prison, working in a casino, in a shared house with a horse living in the dining room, in Africa, in a camp she makes for herself in the abandoned wing of an asylum, not necessarily in that order. It's powerful and totally original writing. Think I'll go back and finish Ulysses.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit, I forgot I had this book on my eReader though I am very glad to have read it! Mountains of the Moon is laid out in little snapshots of the protagonist's life, jumping from childhood to adulthood throughout. Kay, ingeniusly, distinguishes between 'Lulu's' life stages by shifting her use of language and sentence structure, so you very much read the story through the eyes of a child sometimes, which adds an air of innocence to some otherwise dark themes. Reading this book felt like putting together pieces of a puzzle and every time I was itching to find the next piece so I could see the whole picture. As the tale unravels, I found myself pitying our protagonist and her life gave me a new perspective on the privileges of my own. While this book does feel as though it gives more questions than answers, it was a pleasure to read and an eye-opener to be sure.

[Tyler Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book 10 stars. It’s brilliant. Incredibly tragic, and almost confusing, but also so complete, even with all of the mystery that you’re left with.

I wish so bad this author had any other work to read, but it seems this is all she’s done. I recommend this book HIGHLY. I just finished it and have so much to think about.

[Paltia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fractured prisms in the aftermath of an abusive childhood. Recreated, transformed, and healing in the African lands. Simultaneously chilly and heated. A feverish set of memories that is so invasive one struggles through adulthood. Read it slowly.

[Phenomene]

A strange and disturbing book that goes back and forth in time and felt hallucinatory at times. May want to re-read.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I very seldomly throw books in the rubbish bin but I do. This one is an insult to any reader.

[Full Stop]

http://www.full-stop.net/2012/08/23/r...

Review by Catie Disabato

The multi-named protagonist of I.J. Kay’s Mountains of the Moon, Lulu (I’ve chosen one, like one chooses a slip of paper out of a hat), doesn’t like to catch sight of herself in the mirror. She never acknowledges that she’s reflected when she does, instead referring to “the woman in the mirror,” abstracting herself from herself. Sometimes, the woman in the mirror goes to answer the door instead of Louise (another one of Lulu’s names), which is the most poignant and accurate depiction of depression I’ve seen since Melancholia. In a way, by calling herself the woman in the mirror, Louise is just taking on another name for herself.

Kay essentially acquaints the reader with three decades of her narrator’s life, from the time she is ten years old through her early thirties. I say “essentially acquaints” because Kay leaves a ten year gap, between Lulu’s early twenties and early thirties, when she was incarcerated for a violent crime that is introduced fuzzily in the beginning and flushed out somewhat by the end. It’s like the old adage (which either is something people actually say or something only people on TV say): you only serve two days in prison, the day you go in and the day you get out. Lulu’s ten years inside are only mentioned, never seen.

Ten-year-old Lulu deals with an absent father, narcissistic mother, and abusive stepfather by pretending to be an African Warrior from one of her books. Following an incident with a tree and her baby brother, Lulu wakes up in a group home as “Catherine Clark.” She runs away, as she runs from everything, and then skulks around the abandoned wing of a mental hospital for a while. A twenty-year-old now called Beverly — or is it Kim? or Jackie? — lives with a friend named Gwen and works at a casino prior to her incarceration. Thirty-year-old Louise, freshly paroled and the recipient of a long overdue workers’ comp payout, travels through Africa.

Read more here: http://www.full-stop.net/2012/08/23/r...

[Terri · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have been a slam dunk for me. The voice of the narrator was wonderful - inventive, funny, and it changed as she grew. And I love non-linear stories and challenging reads. BUT...this was like trying to put together a million piece puzzle. Characters would pop up 100 pages after you last read about them or would only be mentioned a couple of times. As I struggled to remember who the heck it was, I missed the emotion.

Don't get me wrong - there is a fabulous story inside this book, struggling to get out. One of the reviewers said it was the most challenging book he'd read all year. While he could have been speaking of the life of the main character, I'll bet he was speaking of the structure or lack thereof. I felt the author had listed the scenes on 5x7 cards and tossed the bundle into the air, then gathered them up. The story was told in a random fashion based on the cards. Oh, and parts of the scenes were torn away so the reader had to guess at what the meaning was. This can work but it was carried to an extreme.

I stuck it out and read to the end, which I found very disturbing. I "think" the main character was hooking up again with a "friend" from earlier in the book who had caused a lot of the problems to begin with...though I could be wrong since it was a long time since the friend had appeared on the pages and I wasn't sure about the identity.

All this said, I would give I.J.Kay a second chance. The plot, although hidden in this book, was substantial and interesting. And the language wonderful.

[Alyse · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won the book Mountains of the Moon by I. J. Kay from GoodReads First Reads (along with another, which I'm reading now!) and I was really excited to read it. Sounds pretty intense and interesting, right? I was so wrong...

I don't want to say it was "terrible" because it wasn't atrocious. However, I did not enjoy this book much at all. The hallucinatory and fractured way in which the story is told is so complex and multilayered that even when paying attention, it's nearly impossible to follow. Add (intentionally) misspelled words, (unfamiliar) British slang and fragments of song lyrics to the mix and it's a complete nightmare. Maybe it's just not my "cup of tea."

If I had not read the synopsis, I would have absolutely no clue what this story was all about. Even after reading it I feel the description is a bit of a stretch. If you are going to read this book, read the synopsis right before you begin the book and then again immediately following. It will help put everything together.

I will say this: the author is gifted with descriptions. Even though I usually had absolutely no idea what was going on in the story, I felt like I was there (where ever "there" is...) I wish I could say more about the story, but I couldn't really follow it so I'll just leave it there.

Final Word: D

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