Two Moons

Description

Astronomy, politics, and romance join forces in this novel of Reconstruction era Washington, DC, from bestselling author Thomas Mallon. It's the spring of 1877 in Washington, D.C., and at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Hugh Allison's plan to project an image through time and space takes on urgent life when the mathematically gifted Cynthia May enters his orbit as one of the observatory's human "computers." But the fate of Hugh's heavenly vision-and of his love affair with Cynthia, a Civil War widow whose beauty has been shadowed by worry and poverty-may be out of his hands, decided instead by an astrologer and by the actions of a dangerously magnetic politician. Masterfully combining historical detail and startling invention, Thomas Mallon gives us a galvanizing story of earthly heartbreak and other-worldly triumph.

Thomas Mallon is the author of seven novels, including Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman, and Fellow Travelers. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The Atlantic Monthly. He lives in Washington, D. C.

"Thomas Mallon [is] one of our finer novelists writing about politics (especially those of the 19th century). . . . The arena in which Mallon does his darkest, most gripping work is not that of the solar system but of Washington's spoils system . . . Mallon rewards the reader with wicked humor and deep insight. . . . This is a novel that abounds in rewards." -The New York Times Book Review "Mallon has a fabulous eye for the people at the edge of the historical picture. In Two Moons he brings together a prodigious amount of well-researched period detail and an imaginative deployment of authentic characters. . . . The poisonous Washington atmosphere of hateful Reconstruction politics, tinged by the specter of malaria, practically seeps from the pages of the book. . . . Two Moons is a novel about a quaint kind of homegrown ambition and optimism that is uniquely American. You could call Thomas Mallon either a dreamy scholar or a scholarly dreamer. Either way, his fiction is as lucent as moonlight." -The Washington Post "The book's blend of brainy repartee, soulful poignancy and literary game-playing calls to mind the work of Tom Stoppard. . . . Droll, probing and heartbreaking." -Chicago Tribune "Thomas Mallon's writing sneaks up on you. No verbal pyrotechnics, a one-foot-after-the-other narrative approach-but every so often, you pause and realize that he's been stringing together one perfectly balanced sentence after another, chapter after chapter. . . . Mallon is effective at evoking a time-not so unlike ours-when rationalism and mystical thought overlapped in unpredictable, personal ways." -Salon "A wonderful piece of historical fiction. Mallon is a subtle, careful writer who packs his books with thought-provoking depth." -The Denver Post "Mallon spreads, like a tapestry, a defining historical moment. He then illuminates it through the lives of its minor players, both real and imagined. . . . Two Moons is rich in texture and atmosphere." -Star Tribune "Mallon reliably marshals the kind of period detail that makes him a formidable historical novelist." -Publishers Weekly "American history, technological innovations, and romance excite Mallon's incisive intelligence and lithe imagination. . . . Readers witness all these goings-on through the sharp eyes of Mallon's irresistibly down-to-earth heroine, Cynthia May, a witty, freethinking, and mathematically gifted war widow. . . . Mallon refracts questions of war, woman's rights, and the ordering of the cosmos through the perfect prism of his heroine's mind, adeptly mixing keen social commentary with sheer entertainment." -Booklist "[A] breezy and entertaining historical caper. . . . Mallon recounts his characters respective machinations with good-humored energy in an essentially well-paced narrative. . . . He composes unfailingly graceful sentences, makes transitions expertly, and communicates nicely both his characters' and his own pure pleasure in the spectacle of a vigorous country newly at peace and pleased to kick up its political and sexual heels." -Kirkus Reviews