Publishers Weekly
★ 01/13/2014
Even amid a glut of apocalyptic novels that imagine everything from nuclear meltdown to zombies, Calhoun’s debut presents one of the most terrifying disaster scenarios of all time, perhaps because it’s somehow plausible: a worldwide insomnia epidemic turns people into the real living dead, making them prone to hallucinations and fits of anger. In the wreckage of America, where life and dreams are indistinguishable, several characters struggle to find each other while battling insanity and the encroaching nightmare. A onetime ad exec named Biggs, one of the last people still capable of sleep, searches for his wife Carolyn in the pandemonium. Another sleeper, Lila Ferrell, is among the first to see the epidemic coming thanks to her therapist father’s research; after her parents succumb to wakeful fever and threaten her life, she takes to the streets wearing an owl mask. Eventually, she meets Felicia, a lab assistant at a sleep research center determined to reverse the epidemic. Finally, there’s Felicia’s scofflaw lover, Chase, who attempts to take advantage of the situation by stockpiling sleeping pills, only to wind up embroiled in a surreal adventure involving a truck of stolen sheep. The characters and their intersecting narratives are largely a showcase for the author’s almost unspeakably dark vision of a restless world. Calhoun’s depiction of the collapse of language, reason, and love in a world without sleep is unflinching, and—scariest of all—it feels brilliantly contemporary. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction
“Haunting. . . . Many authors have tackled the mystique of sleeplessness — but few have done so with the grotesque grace and poetic insight of Black Moon. . . . Its totemic power builds into something heart-wrenchingly resonant. . . . [Calhoun’s] prose-rich passages of hallucinogenic abandon aren’t psychedelic—they’re razor-sharp.” —NPR.org
“Intriguing…Startling and evocative…Compelling, with an undercurrent of the surreal as science grapples with matters of the subconscious.”—Jeff Vandermeer, Los Angeles Times
"A dazzlying distopia...Its chillingness lies not only in its accurate portrayal of the insomniac brain but in the plausibility."—The Times (UK)
“Morbid, hallucinatory, darkly funny, and symbolically striking. . . . [Calhoun] carves out new space in the post-sleep apocalypse.” —The AV Club
“Gripping. . . . The characters are all completely relatable. I found myself rooting for their survival from page one.” —Real Simple
“Uniquely haunting. . . . Terrifying and poetically beautiful at the same time. . . . [Calhoun] pushes the weirdness as far as he can, in a way that feels horribly plausible.” —io9
“Engaging. . . . speculative fiction at its best: suspenseful, intelligent, moving, and sure to keep you awake.” —PopMatters
“Calhoun’s depiction of the collapse of language, reason, and love in a world without sleep is unflinching, and—scariest of all—it feels brilliantly contemporary.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Calhoun’s literary dystopia, which features beautiful writing, arresting imagery, and powerful metaphors, will appeal to fans of Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles. . . . A deeply lyrical exploration of humanity at the extremes.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Surprising and unpredictable. . . . In his first novel, Calhoun paints an all-too-believable landscape. . . . His dark tale is allegorical and relevant in today’s zombie-infatuated zeitgeist. This clever twist on the dystopian formula is a standout.” —Booklist
“Surreal. . . . Calhoun’s premise is brilliant.”—Kirkus
“Black Moon is the kind of book I envy as a writer, and seek out as a reader—a novel of ideas wrapped in a gripping, expertly constructed story, full of feeling and intelligence.” —Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
“Black Moon is tremendous: smart, beautifully written, and artfully plotted. Kenneth Calhoun’s story is so engagingly told that it would be easy to overlook how finely crafted it is. And he manages to pull off that essential feat: he makes us care—deeply—for ordinary people trapped in a very extraordinary world.” —Scott Smith, author of The Ruins and A Simple Plan
“A thrilling, deeply intelligent portrait of catastrophe brought on by mass insomnia, by the wreckage that occurs when we lose our ability to close our eyes and escape into dreams. The dystopian landscape is absorbing, the prose electric, but the burning core of this novel is the heartrending and unforgettable story of a man’s quest to save the woman he loves.” —Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth
“Calhoun’s epidemic, this new and improved insomnia, sinks us into a world where ‘sleepers’ are the target of violent rage. Here we see the erosion of the everyday ruses that allow us to soldier on, the ugly truths we run from gaining ground. Black Moon is a powerful, beautiful debut.” —John Brandon, author of Citrus County and A Million Heavens
Library Journal - Audio
01/01/2015
In his debut novel, Calhoun presents a world in which a pandemic has caused nearly everyone to suffer from insomnia. Unable to sleep, unable to dream, the infected begin to devolve, losing sight of what is real and what is illusion and losing touch with basic human kindness and moral conscience. Eventually, the nightmares of the sleepless masses become reality, while those few who can still sleep struggle to maintain some normalcy amid the horror. Weaving together a number of different story lines, Calhoun draws the reader into the madness of a sleepless world. Neil Shah's accomplished narration helps ground the novel, but the difficulty for the listener is that there are times, thankfully few, when the world's confusion becomes the novel's. This is a small problem, however, in a work that compels us to think about just how fragile civilization really is. VERDICT Recommended. ["It is not sf as much as a deeply lyrical exploration of humanity at the extremes," read the starred review of the Hogarth: Crown hc, LJ 1/14.]—Wendy Galgan, St. Francis Coll., Brooklyn
Kirkus Reviews
2014-01-05
A novel about insomnia and dreams, and thus, almost by definition, it's surreal. Calhoun's premise is brilliant, and he follows it to its logical (and psychological) conclusion. What if, gradually, everyone lost the ability to sleep? What would the world look like? How would contemporary culture shift on its axis? In this narrative, we follow a series of characters drastically affected by this shift, most of them pathological insomniacs, though a few retain their ability to sleep and thus become pariahs to the multitudes of the sleepless. At the center of the novel are Biggs (a "sleeper") and his wife, Carolyn, who's given over to the telltale signs of insomnia, including physical symptoms like red-rimmed eyes and psychological symptoms resembling dementia. Over time, Biggs has watched her gradual deterioration, and part of the novel involves Biggs' quest to find her after she goes missing and to share with her an elaborate dream he's had, one Carolyn eventually tries to re-create and film. Another symptom of cultural and personal breakdown can be seen in college students Chase and Jordan. Since prescription sleep aids become extraordinarily valuable in a world populated by insomniacs, Chase and Jordan develop a scheme to rip off the pharmaceutical industry by stealing pills from the containers in which sleep medicines are kept. Chase's ex-girlfriend Felicia works as a lab assistant at a Sleep Research Center, where doctors are desperately trying to find a cure—and where their research sometimes has lethal consequences. Another narrative thread involves high school student Lila, who, like Biggs, has retained her ability to sleep, but she finds she must leave her parents, whose insomnia is leading them toward madness. Calhoun writes beautifully, though the novel is occasionally slow-moving—and thus, ironically, becomes a cure for insomnia.
