Moon and the Mars
Kia Corthron
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
4.17
· 6 ratings · 592 pages · Published: 31 Aug 2021
In Moon and the Mars, set in the impoverished Five Points district of New York City in the years 1857-1863, we experience neighborhood life through the eyes of Theo from childhood to adolescence, an orphan living between the homes of her Black and Irish grandparents. Throughout her formative years, Theo witnesses everything from the creation of tap dance to P.T. Barnum's sensationalist museum to the draft riots that tear NYC asunder, amidst the daily maelstrom of Five Points work, hardship, and camaraderie. Meanwhile, white America's attitudes towards people of color and slavery are shifting—painfully, transformationally—as the nation divides and marches to war.
Corthron's first novel, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, won the coveted First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction in 2016. It was championed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Angela Y. Davis, among many others, and received rave reviews in The New York Times Book Review, where it was an Editor's Choice, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
Tagged as:
- historical fiction 3
- literary fiction 3
- historical 3
- city/urban 2
- civil war 2
- military, war & conflict 1
- protagonists of colour 1
- black mc 1
- Add topics
- format - reader age
- audiobook 3
- anthology 2
- adult fiction 1
- content warnings
- racism 2