Girl in the Moonlight

I remember when I first met her. It changed my life. He was 9. Adam Verner draws listeners into the life of Wylie Rose, his encounters with the eccentric Bonet family, and his lifelong obsession with Cesca Bonet. Na•ve and overprotected, Wylie finds the wealthy, talented, and beautiful Bonets wonderfully strange and seductive, and he'll do almost anything to be near Cesca. Verner delivers Wylie's longing with just the right amount of youthful ardor and offers Wylie's luminous descriptions of Cesca with a lovely lyricism. As Wylie's preoccupation with Cesca covers decades, the story takes him to posh surroundings from East Hampton to the Upper East Side, from Paris to Barcelona. Verner adds luster to Charles Dubow's clear-eyed look at coming-of-age and the nature of obsession. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

March 16, 2015
Following his debut, Indiscretion, Dubow writes an evocative and maddening tale of obsession. When young Wylie Rose sees Cesca Bonet for the first time, his life is placed on a path of compulsion, desire, and what he believes to be love. Once drawn into Cesca’s orbit as adults, she becomes Wylie’s drug of choice. His infatuation gives Cesca the power to walk in and out of his life, screwing up his relationships and plans whenever she chooses to spend time with him. Told through the lavish eye of Wylie, a budding artist interloping in an old-money world pulsating with the tantalizing power of family status and beauty, the novel spans decades and continents—including East Hamptons glamour in the 1960s and New York City at the rise of the AIDS epidemic. Though beautifully descriptive, the narration feels inconsistent: some choices in description and action seem out of character for the narrator. Wylie’s obsession is impassioned but at times frustrating, and questions about whether a person can change, or if we are all doomed to repeat the same mistakes time and time again, will be swirling through readers’ minds.