Theresa Weir's romances have always stood apart for me from others that I've read, and I've always had a hard time putting my finger on why. There's an "otherness" about her books .... she's not the first or last to write about damaged people caught in dangerous situations, or about quiet lives of desperation, but she has a way of telling her stories that is poignant and compelling, and she creates characters and situations that stay with me long after I've finished her books. "Long Night Moon" is, to me, the one of the best of her books, and one of her most haunting.
The book is based in the tragedy of Nash Audubon's life .... an ex-convict who lives out of his car and his office at a quirky newspaper called "Shoot The Moon". The paper prints articles about alien babies and lost cows finding their way home, and the occasional expose, and he does whatever its publisher, Harley Gillette, needs him to do. Nash lives in the present, untouched by the people around him, until one night he sees Sara Ivey try to kill herself. Sara is a beautiful socialite who has snubbed Nash's attempt to interview her; the wife of Donovan Ivey, a businessman turned politician, she's part of Chicago's high society and seems to have everything. But her desperate action in Nash's presence sets off a series of events that bring them together .... Sara is desperate to escape her abusive marriage, and Nash, who is fascinated by her at first, and then drawn to her with deeper feelings, wants to help her.
"Shoot The Moon" isn't always an easy one to read .... Nash is more invested emotionally in their growing relationship than Sara for some time, and both struggle with painful experiences that mar their time together. And there are scenes of violence as Donovan Ivey fights to keep Sara from leaving him. But Weir's lovely way of writing and the strength of her characters keeps the reader caught up in the story. She has created wonderful characters not only in Nash and Sara, but in Harley and in Sara's father, who remains one of my favorite people from any of Weir's books.
I love this book and it remains with me even when I'm not reading it.