'An accomplished first novel' - Time Out
Having avoided all responsibility during his national service in the Italian army, Andreas Weissman returns home to the realities of life as apprentice to his uncle, a hotel night porter.
It's a job that encourages reflection, and Andreas has time to ponder his love for Elisa, the beautiful and turbulent prostitute whose lust for life complemented his own emotional absence. 'You should live on the moon.' she said to him once, 'because yourmind is already there.'
While he pieces together the fragments of his past, the calm of his new routine is shattered by the arrival of a pugnacious businessman and his entourage of bodyguards and whores. And as the moon rises and the night stretches out before them, it is clear that the lines of stress between the characters must fracture.
Spare, almost ethereal, The Moon Rising is a powerful and deeply unsettling novel from an outstanding young writer.
'There is a dramatic intensity about this work, as tempers rise and nerves fray, and Kelly's precise, measured prose perfectly evokes the encroaching avalanches, the shattered glass, the stinging snow, and the emotional vacuity of his young protagonist.' - The Sunday Times
'This quietly menacing novella is an assured performance.' - Chic Magazine
'Kelly gives the "unfailing sense of being young" - and in love - with all the skill and precision of a true professional.' - Penelope Fitzgerald
'The writing, seemingly-matter-of-fact, deceives with its calm, adding menace to an already disturbing depiction of fractured lives and unarticulated desires.' - The Sunday Times
Steven Kelly is the author of the short story collection Invisible Architecture and the novels The Moon Rising and The War Artist. By day, he maintains web sites for a living - including his own on-line literary magazine The Richmond Review. By night, he writes. He can be emailed at [email protected]