Moon Road By Sarah Leipciger

Moon Road is a masterpiece of writing on grief.

Moon Road is a masterpiece of writing on grief. Kathleen and Yannick had a daughter together. Their marriage didn’t work, but they managed to stay good friends, until they weren’t. Now nineteen years later they are driving across Canada to see if they can get some answers about their missing daughter, whom they lost so long ago.

Kathleen has never moved on. She is obsessed with her sad rituals, counting out the days that Una has been gone, having a sorrowful party for her every year, the same images stuck onto candles. She is flawed but beautiful, cantankerous and sharp. Her life is small and controlled and relies too heavily and sharply on those around her. Yannick has moved on, too many times. He has married and remarried and now has four other children from different mothers. His life is full and messy, but he has never stopped chasing the love that he lost when he lost Una, his first-born child.

Yannick calls Kathleen, after nineteen years of silence, to tell her he’s driving out west to Vancouver because there’s potential news about Una’s disappearance. Yannick wants Kathleen to come with him, and while she is very reluctant, she eventually agrees. So begins their long journey of coming back to each other. This road trip setting is also hauntingly beautifully done by Leipciger, as she creates such atmosphere among the Canadian wilderness as they drive from Ontario to BC.

A moving meditation on grief, and the ties that bind us, the book also serves as a bit of a thriller, with flashbacks to Una travelling alone. This kept me desperately flipping to try to find out what happened to her. The flashbacks to Una’s travels at the time of her disappearance are so well done, they left my heart racing. She lived roughly in BC, sleeping in a hollowed-out tree, tents, and a shack. She was last seen stumbling along a pier and looking out to sea. This led me to focus on what terrible things might have happened to Una. We also get flashbacks to Una’s childhood and the questions desperately going through Kathleen’s mind: was she a good mother? Did she do something wrong?

This is a story about long-held grief, a story of love, a story of letting go of hope and laying grief to rest. It was a very moving and well written story and one that will certainly stay with me.

Hailing from Toronto, Ontario, SARAH LEIPCIGER lives in London, U.K., with her three children. She is Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University and also teaches at City Lit. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Asham Award, the Fish Prize, and the Bridport Prize. She is the author of the critically acclaimed The Mountain Can Wait (2015) and Coming Up for Air (2020). Moon Road is her third novel.

Publisher: Penguin Canada (August 27, 2024)
Paperback 9″ x 7″ | 368 pages
ISBN: 9780735249691