An intelligent, generous, and essentially loving person finds herself cutting a long braid from her mother's head…having just killed her. So goes the opening scene in Alice Sebold's new book, The Almost Moon. In her newest novel, Sebold, the author of The Lovely Bones, draws us into a mother-daughter story which is at once unique and universal.

In a moment of passionate desperation, Helen Knightly suffocates her mother with a bundle of towels. The murder wasn't something she planned (though heaven knows she often said to herself "I could just kill her"). Nor, as it turns out, is it something she regrets. As we become privy to the complicated emotions which characterize Helen's feelings about her mother, we come to understand the burden of having grown up with a dysfunctional mother ill-equipped for her role.

Over a 24-hour period, as Helen decides exactly what to do with her mother's body, she brings us fully into her life, and to the experiences which have formed her as a full grown woman. We meet Jake, her ex-husband, who comes to help her deal with both the physical dilemma of her mother's body as well as the emotional (and life) implications of what she has done. Clearly, their marriage was a love-hate relationship but at this point it has a tenderness that almost makes one yearn for a great ex. We also come to know Helen's best friend since childhood, Natalie. The two of them are quite the duo...smart, feisty women that have the kind of bond and intimacy that can only come through years of shared life experiences. They have talked about everything...or almost everything. And we meet Alice's current lover, a twenty-something hunk who is almost a cliche, but who cares given he can generate such heat.

Sebold is a master storyteller. Her prose is clean, unencumbered by excess pathos and fast paced. And her characters are both believable and engaging. This is a great read.