Two Moons - Hardcover

Mallon, Thomas

3.28

156 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375400257 ISBN 13: 9780375400254

Publisher: Pantheon Books, 2000

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It's the spring of 1877 in Washington, D.C., and at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Hugh Allison has conceived a secret ambition: to project an image through time and space. But his plan takes on urgent life only when the mathematically gifted Cynthia May enters his orbit as one of the observatory's human "computers." A Civil War widow whose beauty has been shadowed by worry and poverty, Cynthia reluctantly falls in love with the younger Hugh, who missed the war that has haunted her life. But the fate of their love affair - and of Hugh's heavenly vision may be out of their hands, decided instead by an astrologer and by the actions of a dangerously magnetic politician who wields his power over a Senate convulsed by Reconstruction and a wildly disputed presidential election.

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Review:

Praise for Thomas Mallon

Dewey Defeats Truman

"Like Shakespeare's summery comedies, this novel about love's madness [is] a lovely meditation on the interplay between past and present in the invention of the public and private selves."
-- Jay Parini, "New York Times Book Review"

"Charming. . . . What makes Mallon's novel especially appealing is its atmosphere and authenticity. [He] is a master of detail about a place and a time."
-- Herbert Mitgang, "Chicago Tribune"

"Dewey Defeats Truman is the kind of novel that restores meaning to the present by recovering the past."
-- Mary Ellen Hannibal, "San Francisco Chronicle "
Henry and Clara

"A pitch-perfect rendering. . . . Mesmerizing."
-- Chris Patsilelis, "Philadelphia Inquirer"

"A transporting, beautifully written novel."
-- "Entertainment Weekly"

"You can't ask for more from historical fiction."
-- George Garrett, "Washington Post Book World"

"Thomas Mallon [is] one of our finer novelists writing about politics (especially those of the 19th century). . . . The arena in which Mallon does his darkest, most gripping work is not that of the solar system but of Washington's spoils system . . . Mallon rewards the reader with wicked humor and deep insight. . . . This is a novel that abounds in rewards."
"The New York Times Book Review"
"Mallon has a fabulous eye for the people at the edge of the historical picture. In "Two Moons" he brings together a prodigious amount of well-researched period detail and an imaginative deployment of authentic characters. . . . The poisonous Washington atmosphere of hateful Reconstruction politics, tinged by the specter of malaria, practically seeps from the pages of the book. . . ." Two Moons" is a novel about a quaint kind of homegrown ambition and optimism that is uniquely American. You could call Thomas Mallon either a dreamy scholar or a scholarly dreamer. Either way, his fiction is as lucent as moonlight."
"The Washington Post"
"The book's blend of brainy repartee, soulful poignancy and literary game-playing calls to mind the work of Tom Stoppard. . . . Droll, probing and heartbreaking."
"Chicago Tribune"
"Thomas Mallon's writing sneaks up on you. No verbal pyrotechnics, a one-foot-after-the-other narrative approach but every so often, you pause and realize that he's been stringing together one perfectly balanced sentence after another, chapter after chapter. . . . Mallon is effective at evoking a time not so unlike ours when rationalism and mystical thought overlapped in unpredictable, personal ways."
"Salon"
"A wonderful piece of historical fiction. Mallon is a subtle, careful writer who packs his books with thought-provoking depth."
"The Denver Post"
"Mallon spreads, like a tapestry, a defining historical moment. He then illuminates it through the lives of its minor players, both real and imagined. . . . "Two Moons" is rich in texture and atmosphere."
"Star Tribune"
"Mallon reliably marshals the kind of period detail that makes him a formidable historical novelist."
"Publishers Weekly"
"American history, technological innovations, and romance excite Mallon's incisive intelligence and lithe imagination. . . . Readers witness all these goings-on through the sharp eyes of Mallon's irresistibly down-to-earth heroine, Cynthia May, a witty, freethinking, and mathematically gifted war widow. . . . Mallon refracts questions of war, woman's rights, and the ordering of the cosmos through the perfect prism of his heroine's mind, adeptly mixing keen social commentary with sheer entertainment."
"Booklist"
"[A] breezy and entertaining historical caper. . . . Mallon recounts his characters respective machinations with good-humored energy in an essentially well-paced narrative. . . . He composes unfailingly graceful sentences, makes transitions expertly, and communicates nicely both his characters' and his own pure pleasure in the spectacle of a vigorous country newly at peace and pleased to kick up its political and sexual heels."
"Kirkus Reviews""

About the Author:

Thomas Mallon's novels include Dewey Defeats Truman, Henry and Clara, and Aurora 7. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and GQ, and is the author of books about plagiarism (Stolen Words) and diaries (A Book of One's Own). In 1998, he received the National Book Critics Circle award for reviewing. He lives in Westport, Connecticut.

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