Moon's Crossing

By Barbara Croft

Book Overview

A stunning, cinematic debut novel set at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Moon's Crossing explores a unique time in American history, when the romantic heritage of the nineteenth century merged with the industrial temperament of the modern age.

Jim Moon, an idealistic Union Army veteran, leaves his young wife and son to visit the World's Columbian Exposition, which has attracted America's greatest artists and thinkers as well as its drifters and schemers. Nick, a fast-talking con man, takes Moon to Pullman Town, a model city south of Chicago that is the site of the complex labor strike of 1894. Moon comes to see that the bright future the fair promised is compromised by greed. Unable to recapture his early vision of America, he takes his own life, and in so doing generates a surprising love story between a common young woman and a corrupt policeman as well as a major upheaval in the life of his neglected son.
Kaleidoscopic and fast-paced, Moon's Crossing draws on such sources as the traditional tall tale to present a unique narrative style. Moon's adventures are completely American, and the legacy he leaves is, ironically, more significant than his failed life would have foretold.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618341536
• ISBN13: 9780618341535
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

great book

I enjoyed reading this book by a talented author. Croft takes the reader through a series of events form the farm house of Iowa to the Brooklyn Bridge and back again Ron Sanzone

Poetic, flowing prose

This book was a wonderful surprise. This historical fiction takes us from the nineteenth century where the affluent were cultuted and in quiet control to the roaring, fast advancing industrial modern age.Jim Moon, a gentle, simple man reads about the White City in Chicago and is so drawn to it that he leaves his wife and son to travel there. At first the fair is everything he has imagined, a feast for the senses and beauty everywhere. Moon meets "Nick" who continually leads him into failed pursuits. As the fair ends, Moon has trouble adjusting to the reality of life. He must face a dirty, unreceptive city caught in the mires of a depression. This book leaves the reader with lots to think about, not the least of which is the identity of "Nick" who is a "devilish" and persistent partner to Moon.I would definitely recommend this book, particularly to people who have enjoyed The Devil in the White city. This is the story of the kinds of people who worked at the fair and came to the fair to see the dream city and became lost in its wonder.