Wild Moon Rising
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By Jenny Knight
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1 review
‘Jenny Knight’s writing is brilliant – telling it like it is, full of warmth and humour’ Cathy Rentzenbrink
‘Powerful … A moving story of female desire, ambition and renewal’ Kit de Waal * A powerful and moving debut novel about coming of age again post-marriage and post-menopause. Claire’s life isn’t how she thought it would be when she moves into Hunter’s Moon. Her long marriage is over, her children have flown the nest, and her work as an illustrator no longer satisfies her. She isn’t sure who she is now or what she wants from her life. It wasn’t always like this. Once, she had desires and ambitions. When her octogenarian neighbour, Tansy, suffers a fall, Claire’s solitude is broken. Under the older woman’s guidance, she finds solace and a new sense of purpose in regenerating her wild garden. And as the plants grow, Claire retreads the bittersweet journey that brought her to the second half of her life. This is a story of love. Of friendship and desire, of art and nature, of finding love for yourself and for life itself. It is a story of coming of age, once again, of giving up one’s safety net and embracing a new life beyond. TweetReviews
A book about passion and desire from an older female perspective. Passions lost and found. Passion for art, gardening, sex, friendship, belonging, hope and renewal. Claire’s past is laid out for us in meandering and sometimes disturbing reflections as her future, her “coming of age” is plotted by the cycle of the moon and the seasons of her garden.
As a reading group we were all struck by certain aspects of the book and found chapters of Claire’s past and present life which resonated and mirrored our own. The writing is expressive and atmospheric, brilliant at times, but equally over complicated and confusing making it tricky to follow.
The balance in the book is provided by Tansy who introduces Claire to gardening through which she learns emotional resilience and self acceptance.
Although we found there were problems with Wild Moon Rising as a book club book, it afforded us lots of discussion, both personal and impersonal, reflective and objective.
Claire’s past behaviours were perhaps a touch hedonistic and her present self a little too self absorbed but hey, as Northern women maybe we identify more with the character of Tansy .
