Book Review: Snag the Moon
Snag the Moon. Michele Fitzpatrick, Amika Press, 7 July 2022, Hardcover, Paperback, and eBook, 315 pages.
Reviewed by Stephanie Wilson Medlock.
Snag the Moon falls into the category of “plucky heroine” fiction. From the outset, the reader is reasonably sure that all will turn out well for the main protagonist, an unwed mother of fifty-three who takes on a job as public relations director for an assisted living facility in her hometown of Elmville, Illinois. This is despite the fact that she hates such institutions almost as much as she hates her hometown.
The why behind these facts is how author Fitzpatrick takes her book from predictable to an enjoyable study of a person’s ability to evolve and overcome obstacles. And what obstacles they are. As the novel begins, Eloise Dewmore has just had a stroke and is now hospitalized, soon to return to the very facility that she recently joined as public relations director. Her sudden incapacity is, ironically, the key to her revitalization. Because Eloise has a painful past, and although she has done much to overcome it, she has not dealt with her pain. As a result, she keeps everyone at a distance except her daughter, Mira.
Enter a cast of intriguing and lovable characters led by Lyman Forrester, a towering, unattractive, and overwhelmingly friendly man who is Eloise’s physical therapist. He and Eloise’s unmarried daughter, Mira, work hard to put her on the road to recovery.
During her convalescence as a patient in the Happy Meadows Assisted Living facility, Eloise becomes aware that all is not what it should be in this organization. Ostensibly designed to enhance the lives of elderly patients, some alarming discrepancies in the way people are treated come to light. Eloise suspects that the organization’s CEO, Chuck Ryndel, is profiting immorally and illegally by, among other things, billing Medicare for services he does not provide residents. Even worse, the way the organization is run emphasizes cost-cutting and efficiencies over activities that could enhance the lives of residents.
Should Miss Dewmore rock the boat and take on the difficult task of proving the wrongdoing she suspects? In answering this question, novelist Fitzpatrick offers a keen insight into what would make an assisted living residence bearable – namely, allowing patients to continue to use their minds and talents to create meaning for themselves day-to-day. Just being somewhat incapacitated physically should not, she insists, rob a person of the right to make his own decisions and continue using his or her talents. Once she understands this need, Eloise Dewmore mobilizes the residents of Happy Meadows with surprising results.
Ms. Fitzpatrick’s writing is uneven, wandering from the awkward to the excellent. When inspired, she can be very inventive, as when she describes the trees for which Elmville was named:
“As trees go, they were not the showy sort. Not so wide-shouldered as weeping willows whose crinoline branches swept the ground and hid playing children in their skirts. Not so wide-hipped as the blue spruce and Scotch pine that reminded residents of European holidays. Elms had minor floral displays in spring, just tiny pink buds mostly lost among elliptical leaves. Not like the magnolias and rhododendron bushes that residents were convinced could adapt and endure Midwestern winters, if only they tried hard enough.
She also gives each character a very specific and quirky personality. We want young Theo, who is temporarily living with Lyman while his mother does drug rehab, to learn to trust. We want Mira, Eloise’s competent daughter who somehow strikes out with men, to find a suitable partner. Even the villain, Charles Ryndel, earns some of our sympathy with Fitzpatrick’s description of his relationship with his father and mother. The dialog sparkles, particularly between Eloise and Mira or Eloise and Lyman.
In the end, we care a lot about what happens to the residents of Happy Meadows. If the novel is unduly optimistic, most readers will enjoy the way the author resolves issues for her characters. We all wish life could be so tidy.