Publisher's Weekly
Set in the hamlet of Chewbagin, Vt., this mordant, wisecracking first novel concerns the four bawdy Moon brothers. Stu gets romantic over the women's panties he hides under his mattress; Nicki graduates from petty thievery to chinchilla smuggling; Stanley, warped by mind-altering drugs, turns to political terrorism; and Harry, a manic-depressive swimming champ, becomes obsessed with traversing the English Channel while his marriage is crumbling. Their mother, Alice Viola, frets over her degenerate sons as she ditches her husband Winslow, who promptly falls apart. Sullivan wants us to accept Harry Moon as a cynical Everyman, an endearing, macho anti-hero, but he comes off as a male-chauvinist wimp. The deadpan humor is mostly adolescent, and the fatalistic links between the Moon brothers and their remote ancestorsfour rowdy siblings expelled from England in 1767are tenuous at best. Harry's slow coming of age gives Sullivan ample time for jabs at the Peace Corps, New England, taxes, sex and religion. (August)
Library Journal
This comic novel, strong on clever word play and edge-of-absurdity landscape, presents the life and misadventures of Harry Moon, youngest son of a quirky, small town Vermont couple. Harry is possessed of a somewhat individualistic, staunch moral code which sends him lurching through multiple mishaps as he grows up. As compared with his brothers, a sexual aberrant, a criminal, and a drug addict, respectively Harry is still the best hope of his dotty parents. In his adult life, he becomes a teacher, develops marital problems, and decides to swim the English Channel. The author has attempted combining whimsy with deeper psychological truths, a la John Irving; he succeeds halfway in this first novel. Laurie Spector Sullivan, Transportation Authority Archives, Boston
Genre: Literary Fiction
Set in the hamlet of Chewbagin, Vt., this mordant, wisecracking first novel concerns the four bawdy Moon brothers. Stu gets romantic over the women's panties he hides under his mattress; Nicki graduates from petty thievery to chinchilla smuggling; Stanley, warped by mind-altering drugs, turns to political terrorism; and Harry, a manic-depressive swimming champ, becomes obsessed with traversing the English Channel while his marriage is crumbling. Their mother, Alice Viola, frets over her degenerate sons as she ditches her husband Winslow, who promptly falls apart. Sullivan wants us to accept Harry Moon as a cynical Everyman, an endearing, macho anti-hero, but he comes off as a male-chauvinist wimp. The deadpan humor is mostly adolescent, and the fatalistic links between the Moon brothers and their remote ancestorsfour rowdy siblings expelled from England in 1767are tenuous at best. Harry's slow coming of age gives Sullivan ample time for jabs at the Peace Corps, New England, taxes, sex and religion. (August)
Library Journal
This comic novel, strong on clever word play and edge-of-absurdity landscape, presents the life and misadventures of Harry Moon, youngest son of a quirky, small town Vermont couple. Harry is possessed of a somewhat individualistic, staunch moral code which sends him lurching through multiple mishaps as he grows up. As compared with his brothers, a sexual aberrant, a criminal, and a drug addict, respectively Harry is still the best hope of his dotty parents. In his adult life, he becomes a teacher, develops marital problems, and decides to swim the English Channel. The author has attempted combining whimsy with deeper psychological truths, a la John Irving; he succeeds halfway in this first novel. Laurie Spector Sullivan, Transportation Authority Archives, Boston
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Thomas Sullivan's The Phases of Harry Moon