Perigee Moon

by Lynn Schneider

Dismayed at events occurring in his family and with the world in general, Luke desires a different kind of existence. Issues he has been unwilling to confront become important enough that he realizes he must make life-altering decisions, reconsider a variety of things he thought he’d understood all along, and revise the view of his own nature and place in the world.Controlled by Kate, who has been his constant companion since childhood, he has been coerced into choices he never expected to make, and a lifestyle he never expected to live. Until the night of the Perigee Moon when everything has gone wrong and Luke makes choices of his own. Abby, an old friend from high school comes back into his life and Luke finds the friend, the lover, the soul-mate he has craved only to be subjected to Kate’s unwillingness to let go. Luke must convince Kate that what they had is over and convince Abby that what they have is right.

342 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 2012

About the author

I've written three books about boomers, women's fiction novels about the times we grew up in and why we made some of the choices we did.

My latest work is Perigee Moon, which is the story of a man who was controlled by a woman since the time they were children. He finds himself, at middle age, living a life he hasn't chosen for himself.

Maybe he's changed, maybe he's decided to take a stand against others making his decisions for him, but change happens. When he meets up with a woman he used to know at a high school reunion, he can see a happily ever after in his future.

But someone from his past isn't quite willing to let go, and threatens to destroy everything.

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Reviews

[Irma Fritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Missed Opportunities!

In Luke’s neighborhood, there are other kids like him. They want to play, but can’t decide what; they want to have fun, but don’t know how. Since none of them have any ideas, they’re simply out there, hanging around on the sidewalks, idling away their summer vacation. They’re passive kids, who have no goals and no direction, no overwhelming desire to accomplish something within a day or, as it turns out later, within a lifetime.

All this changes when a new family moves into the neighborhood. Kate is one of the children of this new family, and this aimless bunch of kids is just what she needs as an outlet for her drive to accomplish, to direct, and to create. Once she takes charge of them, there’s no more lazing about or whiling away a perfectly good day. That little pretty head of hers is chock-full of ideas. She organizes games, she determines who does what, and she directs the play. Little Kate sees the void and steps into the breach as writer, producer, director, and star of Henley Street!

While Kate takes charge of all of them, her particular interest is the handsome and aimless Luke. When Kate tells him, in Junior High, that they’re now girlfriend/boyfriend, Luke isn’t certain what this means. As drop-dead gorgeous and popular Kate plans every move for their life together, he acquiesces at each turn. After about three decades, when he finds himself with three kids, a career he hates that supports the family’s lifestyle he didn’t create and doesn’t approve of, Luke wants it all to stop.

Too passive to take charge, Luke is washed along like a piece of driftwood in whatever direction Kate points. While Luke’s career has stalled, Kate makes and spends fortunes in real estate where she finds a circle of like-minded friends. While Kate works hard in the daytime and plays hard at night, Luke follows his new hobby of observing the phases of the moon. He awaits the night of the Perigee moon, this super moon that occurs when earth, moon, and sun are all aligned, with the moon in its nearest approach to the earth. And it is on the night of the Perigee moon, when Kate will not get out of bed and share his excitement, that Luke makes the first independent decision in their life together. He wants a divorce! But since Kate has always been the one to accomplish what needs to be done, Luke wants for Kate to want the divorce. If it’s her idea, it will get done; if it’s his idea, she’ll find a way to stop him.

When Luke finally gets away from Kate to lead a monk-like existence, his life becomes so dull that I hoped Kate would re-appear. And she does just that at a High School reunion where Luke reconnects with Abby. While the author primes us for a showdown between the two women, when it comes, it lacks the fireworks needed to make this scene crackle. So Luke and Abbey begin their romance. Thoughts of passion fizzle as Abby decides they should get to know each other better before they become lovers. While Abby is not Kate, is she now taking on the role of directing Luke’s life? While Abby and Luke enter into a period of chaste contentment, I again fervently wished for Kate’s return to enliven the scene. And back she comes, not with a roar but a whimper. There is much ado about nothing as silly misunderstandings ensue and threaten to break up Abby and Luke.

I wanted to cheer for Luke when he finally grows a pair of balls and mans up, but it’s too little too late as most of his life has been a story of missed opportunities.

Perigee Moon is an interesting study in human relationships!

[Marsha Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perigee Moon is a skillfully written book about the consequences of the choices we make in life. By taking us back to the beginning of the relationship of Luke and Kate, which started in childhood, Ms. Schneider draws us into Luke's dilemma in a very personal way and creates an extremely sympathetic character. We see that the foundation of their "love" is based on Luke allowing Kate to make choices for him, ultimately controlling him. His choice is to let her choose for him, and the price he pays for this is high. I liked Luke a lot and sometimes it was hard to watch the penalty exacted on him for his weakness.

Ms. Schneider's strong suit as a writer is in her ability to paint such a complete portrait of her characters that you would easily recognize them if they walked in the room. She also has a very wry sense of humor, injecting a scene or a phrase at just the right moment to keep the narrative interesting and engaging. The symbol of the perigee moon works wonderfully well and serves as the perfect turning point in the novel.

I don't want to spoil the ending for other readers, but I have to say that it was completely satisfying and I breathed a huge sigh of relief for Luke, a character I won't soon forget. I highly recommend Perigee Moon - a very enjoyable story and a well-crafted book.

[Sharon Tillotson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Perigee Moon, our hero, Luke, is just the sort of decent, likeable guy who should end up married to a nice girl and they have a nice family and live happily ever after. He should do that, but he doesn’t. Instead a girl who is not very nice gets her hooks into him and won’t let go. She uses her feminine wiles to catch him up in her dream, tricking him into marriage. Her dream becomes his nightmare and he finds himself at middle age wondering how it is he has allowed himself to come so far away from who he is.

Having not led a conventional life with just one job or one career for thirty or so years, I have often admired those who can do that. This book makes me glad of my choices, well chronicling a nice guy plodding along and doing the jobs expected of him, producing three kids and a dog, a job in IT he no longer cares for, and a dead marriage.

Luke begins escaping by taking up astronomy. He buys a telescope, walking late at night, gazing at the moon and stars and somehow finding meaning in them. One night he decides to stay up and watch a Perigee moon. A Perigee full moon appears much bigger than a normal full moon and this is a Supermoon, an irregular phenomenon with occasionally over a decade between occurrences. He asks his wife to join him, knowing she would not but hoping for it anyway.

That night something changes in Luke and he resolves it is time to end the marriage. But as much as the reader is cheering him on and would like to see him take immediate action, indeed sometimes shouts at him to grow a pair already, he determines he will wait until his youngest daughter leaves home. He begins studying the deep philosophical questions and that gets him through the remaining years.

When the break does finally come, Luke goes on for a while in his dead-end job until one day he finally snaps and just packs up and leaves. He falls into a new job which keeps him outside and working with his hands and slowly he begins to pick up the pieces of his life.

Throughout the book, Luke has been thinking back to a girl from school named Abby he once had a crush on; star-crossed lovers who seem always destined to be apart. He finally meets up with her at a school reunion and discovers the spark is still there. But his ex has broken up with her latest fling, and his precious youngest daughter has always harbored thoughts of her parents reuniting. She encourages the ex to reunite with Luke. Luke is conflicted.

You will have to read the book (and I highly recommend you do), to discover if Luke finally ‘grows a pair’, or will he drift back into old habits because he wants to please his daughter and it would be the easy thing to do...

The author has a unique writing style all her own which I rather enjoyed. The first half of the book plods along, paralleling the pace of the first half of Luke’s life, and is written in third person, past tense. The last half flows smoothly into third person, present tense. This artifice worked very well for the story.

This is the second book in a row I read which was written by a woman with a male lead, not an easy feat but well done in both cases. Kudos to the author.

All in all a satisfying coming-of-middle-age book which would be enjoyed by all ages.

[Sandra Nachlinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Kate Willoughby’s family moves into eight-year-old Luke Koslov’s neighborhood, his life changes forever. Kate’s domination of Luke begins immediately as she takes charge of the neighborhood children and directs their play. With her strong personality, manipulative ways, and vindictive nature, she claims Luke as her own and controls his life through high school and college and beyond. Although Luke feels occasional misgivings and uneasiness during those years, he rarely questions his life. But then …. Since I don’t want to give spoilers in my review, I’ll just say that Luke has a change of heart.

Kate is reminiscent of Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction”, though not quite that extreme. (In fact, that movie is mentioned in the book.) She is self-centered, driven, and willing to use almost any means to get what she wants. Even in high school, she is one of those people you wouldn’t want to cross. Her beauty and strong personality assure her popularity, though that may have been more from fear than her classmates’ genuine fondness for her.

Following the lives of these Luke and Kate from the 1950s to present time, Perigee Moon gives an accurate and often entertaining look at the lifestyles, beliefs, and social mores of those decades. Luke is a sympathetic character—a good guy who basically just goes along with whatever comes his way. Introspective, thoughtful, he’s easy prey for Kate. Although I often wished he would “man up” and take charge of his life, the author presented Luke’s reasonable, well-thought-out logic for why he should go along with Kate’s plans. Kate’s manipulation of Luke is heart-breaking; she’s easy to hate.

All through the book, Lynn Schneider’s sense of humor shines through. One of my favorite scenes takes place in Luke’s office and involves the use of buzzwords and catch phrases by the Earnest Young Men (EYM) in his office. After hearing “on the same page”, “having said that”, and “paradigm shift” one too many times, Luke makes up his own phrase and uses it, just to see if he can get the EYM’s to adopt it. That scene and the ones that follow have a “Take This Job and Shove It” feel that almost everyone has experienced at least once.

I highly recommend this enthralling and entertaining book. Not only is it beautifully written, the book’s formatting on my Kindle was flawless, leaving me free to enjoy the author’s words. I saw no typos, misuse of words, or grammatical errors, for which I’m grateful.

[Beth Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main characters in Perigee Moon were complex, especially Luke. From the start of the book, Luke is passive, looking for someone to tell him what to do, and along comes Kate, to do just that. Kate is completely self-centered, a diva for whom everyone else in the world is a supporting actor, there to serve her. She decides that Luke belongs to her, and so he does.

During the time that Kate controls his life, Luke is generally likeable, even if I’d have liked to slap some sense into him occasionally. Eventually, on the date of a Perigee moon, Luke realizes he must break away from Kate. As Luke starts to gain independence, I begin to see some troubling characteristics. His dark views sometimes become almost obsessive. In one scene, his landlady has invited him to a dinner party. He sees her nicely decorated kitchen and asks her to redo his (on his half of the duplex) and she agrees. Then he uses a paper towel and goes into a rant about a decorative quote on it and the dye polluting the environment, apparently neither realizing the irony of demanding a perfectly functional kitchen be redone to make it pretty and then condemning the paper towel manufacturer for doing the same, nor the rudeness of criticizing his hostess’s buying habits. I began to feel he was almost as self-centered as Kate at one point.

Then there’s Abby. She is a truly kind person. She had opinions and ways of looking at things, but never imposes her views on others. Her natural tendencies are to be helpful, kind, and positive. She changes the whole tone of the story.

Perigee Moon is a well-told story of Luke’s life and how his character matures and grows.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perigee Moon takes the reader through several decades of the protagonist's life, allowing us to see Luke's mistakes and wrong choices in an almost voyeuristic fashion. I found myself saying, "No, don't do that!" and turning page after page, eager to see what would happen. But through this journey, we also get to see Luke mature and experience self-realizations that improve his life's trajectory. In its simplest form, it's the story of a man who chooses the wrong woman to marry--a plotting and self-absorbed woman--while his real love passes right by him. In its more complicated form, it is an insight into the human condition, and why we sometimes make the choices we do. I found the author's style similar to John Irving and Jonathan Franzen. The story is well-written and the characters rich. I recommend it for those who like an introspective read.

[Carol Brill · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are drawn to stories about friendship, the choices made in love, and not giving up on happiness, this is your kind of novel. While it is mostly Luke and Kate's story, one of the strengths of Perigee Moon is the authors sympathetic development of Abby. From the first time I met Abby on the page, I was drawn to and a bit protective of her character. That, and the hope woven throughout the story kept me turning the page. The writing is transparent and allows the story to flow. At times, there is more telling than showing, and that made it harder for me to get as close to the characters as I prefer.

[Rasana Atreya · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author weaves a wonderful tale around the main characters, Luke and Kate. I was drawn so deeply into their tale that I cheered Luke on when things went well, and gritted my teeth in frustration when they didn't. Kate, well, is another story. Read to find out.