Crying For The Moon is the first novel from Canadian actor and writer Mary Walsh. Known to many from the breakout skit comedy show Codco, and creator of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, she has a distinct voice which continues to champion the lifestyle of Eastern Canada.
Crying For The Moon takes place in Newfoundland - St. John's in the early 70's. Teenage friends Maureen and Carleen escape a choir tour in Montreal to seek out adventure - they finds it in the local bars, and Reenie returns home pregnant in disgrace. She moves in with Bo, an abusive alcoholic boyfriend, whose friends Jimmy, Dicey Doyle and Duecey are running a growing drug import business. Knocked about once too often, Reenie laces all the food - including a healthy dose in the OJ - with exterminator fluid, half meaning to kill Bo. Never mind Reenie - he's already been found dead, tied and locked in the back of a car. As Maureen navigates the police questions, local AA meetings - although she isn't an alcoholic, and her own feelings of self worth after living with a mother named Sarge, she discovers she has a lot of growing up to do.
This is a dark tale, extremely well told with an original voice. If you know the characters she has written and played in Codco and Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, there is a unique Newfoundland cadence and slang (such as Buddy was really givin'er, and, Whaddya at?) that she captures perfectly. With a black humour that is continually funny, you can tell Mary has a love for her oddball characters who seem to fit perfectly on Princess Street in 1970. It seems a sentimental read, perhaps the situations and friends are closer to home than fiction.
2017 / Hardcover / 327 pages
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