A Thousand Moons

Days Without End #2

by Sebastian Barry

A dazzling new novel about memory and identity set in Paris, Tennessee in the aftermath of the American Civil War from the Booker Prize shortlisted author Sebastian Barry.

Winona Cole, an orphaned child of the Lakota Indians, finds herself growing up in an unconventional household on a farm in West Tennessee. Raised by her adoptive father John Cole and his brother-in-arms Thomas McNulty, this odd little family scrapes a living on Lige Magan’s farm with the help two freed slaves, the Bougereau siblings. They try to keep the brutal outside world at bay, along with their memories of the past. But Tennessee is a state still riven by the bitter legacy of the civil war and when first Winona and then Tennyson Bouguereau are violently attacked by forces unknown, Colonel Purton raises the Militia to quell the rebels and night-riders who are massing on the outskirts of town. Armed with a knife, Tennyson’s borrowed gun and the courage of her famous warrior mother Winona decides to take matters into her own hands and embarks on a quest for justice which will uncover the dark secrets of her past and finally reveal to her who she really is. Exquisitely written and thrumming with the irrepressible spirit of a young girl on the brink of adulthood, A Thousand Moons is a glorious story of love and redemption.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Westerns, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, LGBT

272 pages, Hardcover

First published March 19, 2020

About the author

Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He is noted for his dense literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers

Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. In recent years his fiction writing has surpassed his work in the theatre in terms of success, having once been considered a playwright who wrote occasional novels.

He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel On Canaan's Side was long-listed for the Booker. He won the Costa Book of the Year again - in 2017 for Days Without End.

Reviews

[Paromjit · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heartrending and moving historical novel from the talented Sebastian Barry, written with his trademark vibrant, lyrical and sublime prose, set amidst the unsettling and disturbing repercussions of the Civil War in 1870s Tennessee, seen through the distinctive voice and eyes of the traumatised Winona. The reader is returned to the lives and unconventional family of Thomas McNulty and John Cole, living on the farm with Lige Magan, scrabbling to survive in the harshest of environments, growing tobacco, with the Lakota orphan, Ojanjintka, known as Winona and two black ex-slaves, Rosalee and Tennyson. It is a brutal world where poverty, prejudice and racism proliferates, where Native American Indians like Winona, are less than nothing, perceived as less than human with no rights whatsoever.

The vulnerable Winona looks back at her challenging past, she knew far more about her Lakota background and beliefs than presumed, she had been taught to read and write, and ending up working as a clerk for a lawyer in town. She has to face the most terrifying of incidents where she is attacked and raped, but knows not by whom. The novel focuses on how she responds to her desperate plight, negotiating the most difficult of paths to survive the trials and tribulations that come her way and grow, in a family that faces other dangers. Barry's storytelling is atmospheric, immersive, compassionate, and utterly riveting in its depiction of American history, a history and issues that continue to hold an all too tenacious grip on our contemporary realities today.

This is a beautifully imagined novel with emotional heart, with complex characters that illustrate the twin sides of humanity, the worst aspects, the cruelties, and its horrors, side by side with its best face, the love, the kindness and essential goodness. Highly recommended coming of age read of identity, love, loss, friendship, family, loss, grief, survival and sorrow. Many thanks to Faber and Faber for an ARC.

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Civil War is over when this story begins, but times are still brutal. It’s not easy or safe to be a former slave or a young Indian girl who bear the brunt of violent acts by those who consider them less than the white man. So much gave me pause here, not because I wasn’t aware of this history, but because it sadly and stunningly reflected so much that is relevant at this moment in history. For anyone who loved Days Without End, this sequel is one you will want to read to know more about the lives of Thomas McNulty, John Cole and Winona, the young Sioux orphan whom they have taken into their lives and their hearts as a daughter. The novel takes place several years after the first book ends. Thomas and John are working on the farm in Paris, Tennessee, owned by a friend they fought with during the war.

It’s a story of the bravery of a young girl who has suffered adversity as a child and then again, now as a young woman, seeking justice not just for herself, but Tennyson, a former slave who also works on the farm. It’s the story that reflects the time, but see the quotes below. To give details would spoil a plot which had me guessing at times. There are tense moments that are heartbreaking and moments where the love these characters have for each other knows no bounds. There are moments when the horrific results of racism got me in the gut and moments where friendship and characters who cared moved me to tears.

Some thought provoking quotes that will make you wonder if this is past or the now:

“We were nothing to them. I think now of the great value we put on what we were and I wonder what does it mean when another people judge you to be worth so little you were only to be killed.”

“Whitemen in the main just see slaves and Indians. They don’t see the single souls. How all are emperors to those that love them.”

“The time is so dangerous that the law is barely possible.”

“And why, Colonel, did they beat that poor man?” “Because Bouguereau was once a slave, that all. No more nor less.”

“An injury to one soul might be of small account in the great and endless flower-chain of human injuries. But was not the law designed to peer at each, one by one, and give everything equal weight betimes.”

Recommended, for sure if you read the first book, but I think it would also work as a stand-alone.

I received a copy of this book from Viking through Edelweiss.

[Ceecee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the beautifully told story of Winona Cole or to give her Lakota name - Ojinjintka. It’s 1870’s Tennessee, torn apart by the destruction of the Civil War and not healing well. It’s dangerous, ravaged by ‘night riders’ led by Zach Petrie, it’s discontented and full of burgeoning prejudice, not only towards Indians but also to ex-slaves. The infamous words of Colonel John Chivington at Sand Creek still applies, ‘kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice’. In these brutal times, Winona is a non- person with no rights. Despite this, the book is ultimately about love, courage, survival and the search for identity.

Winona lives with Thomas McNulty and John Cole on the land owned by Lige Magan. These are fantastically created characters, as is her Chickasaw friend Peg, who spring of the page in full technicolour. They love Winona, protect her and care for her. She faces some horrifying and terrifying situations but their love for her never wavers. Winona is the narrator and she is fascinating. She has faced so many dangers since being removed from her Wyoming birthplace and I especially love the references to her Lakota background but also how it is set in the context of the time. The writing is vivid and feels incredibly authentic and her voice comes through very strongly. Sebastian Barry is a writer of tremendous talent and so beautiful is the prose that it is almost lyrical. He captures the way that people think and speak with precision.

Overall, this is a wonderful novel. I love the history of the American West and am especially fascinated by the native peoples, in particular The Lakota so this book definitely ‘speaks to me’. I love the way it’s written through Winona’s eyes and her story has everything from sorrow and loss to love, from brutality to kindness and from near death to salvation. The end is very spiritual and achingly beautiful. Highly recommended.

[Dem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sebastian Barry is a master of prose and story and having loved the majority of his novels I was eager to get my hands on A Thousand Moons and the sequel to Days Without End. Unfortunately this was just an ok read for me and didn’t wow me like The Secret Scripture or A Long Long Way and perhaps my expectations was too high.

I had previously read Days Without End a few years ago, it still took me quite a while to connect with the characters of John Cole, Thomas McNulty and Winona, a Lakota girl orphaned and raised by John and Thomas and while this is a sequel, I really struggled to remember what had gone on previously and am not really sure how this would work as a stand alone.

Winona is a young Lakota orphan adopted by former soldiers Thomas McNulty and John Cole.
Living with Thomas and John on the farm they work in 1870s Tennessee, she is educated and loved, forging a life for herself beyond the violence and dispossession of her past. But the fragile harmony of her unlikely family unit, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is soon threatened by a further traumatic event, one which Winona struggles to confront, let alone understand.

Barry’s prose is always beautiful and yet I struggled with the telling of the story through the character of Winola. I found it really difficult to stay engaged with this story.
There is a harshness and brutality about the story and yet Barry leaves quite a lot to the reader’s imagination.

An ok read but unfortunately not one for my real life bookshelf.

My Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this in return for an honest review.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part 2 of Sebastian Barry's award-winning masterpiece Days Without End is told by Winona Cole, the adopted daughter of Thomas McNulty (narrator of part 1) and the love of his life, John Cole. Short recap: Thomas fled the Great Famine in Ireland and fought in the Indian Wars and the American Civil War with fellow soldier John Cole. They adopted orphaned Lakota Winona (although they did not know whether they were partly responsible for the death of her family) and moved to Lige Magan's farm to live as a family. In case you haven't read part 1, there are several flashbacks woven into part 2, but it's certainly better to read these novels in their proper order (part 1 is also insanely good, so do yourself a favor and pick it up).

Now, we encounter the Cole family still living on the farm in Paris, Tennessee with old Lige and two freed slaves, Rosalee and her brother Tennyson, farming tobacco. The atmosphere around them is hostile: The Confederacy might have lost the war, but racism and hatred are still alive and well - it's a dangerous time for soldiers who fought for the Union, Black people and Native Americans. When both Tennyson and Winona get attacked, the community at the farm and their friends want to seek justice - but who were the culprits? Winona, aiming to follow the example of her brave mother, acts to make sure she and the ones she loves are safe, setting in motion a violent course of events...

Once again, Barry creates a particular diction for his narrator, thus conveying a specific outlook on the world. Much like in the case of Thomas McNulty, Winona's language is simple, but intense, and it is very effective in lending the whole story, which largely deals with violence and hate, an emotional heart, thus exposing the unfolding events as even more dire and inhumane. Winona, who lost her tribe as a six-year-old child, is still deeply rooted in Lakota beliefs she learnt as a kid, among them the story of the "thousand moons": "For my mother time was a kind of strange hoop or a circle, not a long string. If you walked far enough, she said, you could find the people still living who had lived in the long ago. 'A thousand moons all at once', she called it." This conviction that what is past is not lost or over will prove central to the novel.

Winona also looks up to Thomas and John for their love and loyalty. Her drive and her decisions is what pushes the story forward and gives it speed - it feels much faster than part 1, where Thomas was often caught up in historic turmoil and developed a sense of agency through his love for John Cole.

While the text as a whole is certainly successful - moving and exciting, crafted with wonderful poetic sensibility - some turn of events do feel slightly contrived and the narrative arc is sometimes a little meandering. But while my head did tell me this, my reading heart did not care: Sebastian Barry is a freakin' master, and his character building is unbelievable (Thomas McNulty is still one of the best characters I have ever encountered in a novel). Again, the author juxtaposes human compassion and human cruelty, pointing out that it's our decision who we want to be, throughout history. The diverging historic tendencies that play out in the background of the story are a testament to this: There is the rise of the neo-confederate first Ku-Klux-Klan, but also the building of colleges like Fisk in Nashville.

Reading this novel, it is striking how the historical phenomena Barry describes have, to a degree, never ceased to be current. I hope there will be a part 3 to this unusual saga about a family that is one because they choose to, against all odds.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I come from the saddest story that ever was on the earth. "

Ojinjintka, now known as Winona Cole, is an orphaned child of the Lakota Indians. She is now being raised in an unconventional home on a farm in West Tennessee. She is being raised by John Cole and Thomas McNulty and two freed slaves, Rosalee and Tennyson. It's a harsh world where Winona and Rosalee and Tennyson are viewed as less than human - they have no rights and live in a world full of racism and prejudice. Winona has experienced a lot of tragedy and loss in her life. She lives in a dangerous time and hardship is a way of life as is survival.

If anyone has read Barry's work previously, you know his prose is lyrical and poetic. His writing is beautiful, and he utilizes the character of Winona to describe not only the bleakness and harshness of life but also to show love and tenderness.

Having said that, there were sections of this book I wanted to move along. I felt those sections lasted a thousand moons for me. I don't know if it was my mood at the time, but my appreciation flipped and flopped while reading this book. At times, I wanted to shake my book and yell just get to it already - this is becoming way too wordy; other times, I sat and savored the beautiful prose. I went back and forth between 3 and 3.5 stars but ultimately decided on 3 stars.

I enjoyed Winona and her family. I loved how they cared for and looked after each other. It doesn't take blood to make a family - these characters proved that. I thought the story was powerful but just wanted those sections which didn't work for me to move along.

Other readers enjoyed this book more than I did, I encourage everyone to read those reviews as well.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing. This is the follow up to the author’s previous novel, the brilliant Days Without End. It’s set after the Civil War, during the time of westward expansion in North America. It’s a time almost completely without rule of law in the west. It starts with Thomas McNulty, the narrator of the first volume, and his lover John Cole, wondering what to do about their charge, Winona, an American Indian who tragically lost her family during the recent Indian wars, and who has just been assaulted in the local town of Paris, Tennessee. In this volume Winona takes up the narration. Coincident with the main story is the rise of the KKK and the failure of Reconstruction. Freedom for men and women of color is a very recent invention in the U.S. For the most part this is the moving story of a young woman starting to find her way in life during especially troubled times.

[Marchpane · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I had the wound of being a lost child. Thing was it was they that healed me, Thomas McNulty and John Cole. They had done their damnedest I guess. So they both gave me the wound and healed it, which is a hard fact in its way.”

A Thousand Moons is a sequel of sorts to Days Without End, a novel of the American Civil War as told by Union soldier Thomas McNulty. Thomas and his love, fellow soldier ‘Handsome John Cole’, make a family by adopting/abducting a young Lakota girl who they re-name Winona. A Thousand Moons picks up the story from Winona’s perspective after the war’s end.

Thomas’ narration of the earlier book is warm, openhearted and candid, holding nothing back, but Winona as a narrator is much more closed off. Given her background, it is understandable that she would be guarded, even aloof with the other characters, but she is also frustratingly unreachable for the reader. Barry crafts for her a distinctive voice, in his lyrical way, but somehow we never quite get to know her.

And there seems to be something of a missed opportunity to recast events and characters in a new light—as we are now seeing them through Winona’s very different perspective. Barry expands on the earlier story, for instance by revealing that Winona’s original name is Ojinjintka, but he doesn’t seek to complicate it, instead forging forwards into the simmering volatility of the Reconstruction Era. The plot here is a little muddled, in a way that made it hard to find this novel’s thematic or emotional throughline.

At a sentence level, A Thousand Moons is a pleasure to read, Barry’s prose glides beautifully. There are moments of insight, tenderness and spirit throughout, but it doesn’t quite make a cohesive whole. 3 stars.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another story she told was one she called The Fall. A great sickness had come to us, she said, a thousand moons ago. Almost everyone died. They fell down and just hours later were dead. Oh, how we feared that story. A thousand moons ago was her deepest measure of time. It was the same measure as Thomas McNulty’s ‘a hundred years’. … . For my mother time was a kind of a hoop or a circle, not a long string. If you walked far enough, she said, you could find the people still living who had lived in the long ago. ‘A thousand moons all at once’, she called it. ….

This book is a direct sequel to the author’s Costa Book Award winning, literary Western “Days Without End”, taking as its first party narrator, Ojinjintka, the Lakota girl (and orphaned-by-massacre niece o Caught-His-Horse-First) who Thomas McNulty and John Cole take as a servant apprentice after they first are discharged from the army and who Thomas (the narrator of “Days Without End” names Winona after the only Indian girl’s name he knows and can pronounce)

The book starts exactly where “Days Without End” does indeed end –Thomas and John are, with two freed slaves (Rosalee and her brother Tennyson), working on their ex-comrade Lige Magan’s Tennessee farm in the aftermath of the Civil War, an aftermath made particularly difficult in Tennessee due to its split loyalties during the war and unresolved tensions after with blacks and Indians still subject to harassment by increasingly unhappy ex-Rebel soldiers. Winona, who has been schooled in reading and writing by Thomas and John, is working as a clerk for a local lawyer.

The basic plot of the book is that Winona is courted by a local shop clerk Jas Jonski, but one day is then beaten and raped in an incident she cannot remember. Later Tennyson is badly beaten and rendered mute. The book is about how Winona uncovers the truth behind both assaults, against a background of increasing tension and shifting power allegiances at national and local level.

The book has many similarities to Days Without End, going beyond the pre/post Civil War setting and Western style

Firstly in the distinctive writing style which mixes plain speaking characters, and descriptions of violence and harsh poverty, with beautifully poetic imagery, particularly of landscape and weather. “Days Without End” was criticised by some readers for the apparent disconnect between the style and the narrator’s education and background – interestingly (as though Barry had already contemplated his sequel) “Days Without End” itself sets up Winona as being taught from a book how to express herself graciously in English.

Secondly I think in the way in which Barry does not employ an omniscient narrator but sticks closely to the first person approach – so that in the first book we understand Thomas’s thoughts and ideas but all of what we see of Winona’s thoughts and feelings is what Thomas hopes/assumes/guesses/intuits about her. In this book however we see ways in which he perhaps misunderstood her true feelings (for example her strong remaining links to her childhood tribal memories, her recollection of events which in the first book Thomas hopes she did not really understand or even see). Thomas in particular underestimates her maturity.

And this time, Thomas (who we feel we know well from the first book as a thoughtful and measured character) becomes a less rounded character – much as Winona loves him and appreciates his maternal care for her, she seems him as a little headstrong (his only solution to any problem seeming to be to shoot the person he blames). Winona in particular perhaps overestimates Thomas’s ageing.

and there was something in Thomas that spoke of age even if it wasn’t written so much in his face. Men with hard beginnings pay cents on the debt that at length burgeon up to dollars. Though accounted a beauty in his youth it was a mortgaged beauty now. The rats of age were gazing on him from the shadows

Thirdly in Barry’s empathetic and nuanced writing style – this is no simple Western of goodies and baddies; yes there is love and sacrifice (but by people capable of great violence) and yes there is evil (but by people capable of unexpected and surprising kindness).

However the links to the first book are far deeper and in a way which makes me think it is a clever and deliberate reflection of the book, for example:

- The book effectively narrated many years after the events that occurred – which does mean that we know the narrator survives the perils and trials (both figurative and literal) that they face. The hindsight narration and the potential distortions that can bring, are more explicitly acknowledged here.

If I say that here following are the real events, you will remember that they are described at a great distance from the time of their happening. And that there is no one to agree to or challenge my account, now. Some of it I am inclined to challenge myself, because I say to myself, could that really have happened, and did I really do that? But we only have one path across the mire of remembrance in general

- A narrator who has seen their family die in front of them (by famine and massacre respectively) and who is also fully aware that they and their kin are seen as close to valueless (and almost inhuman) by wider society

But the soldiers killed her of course and they killed my father and my uncles. They killed my sister, my aunts, they killed a lot of people. They must have done, because everyone was gone. It was just me then, it felt like. We were nothing to them. I think now of the great value we put on what we were and I wonder what does it mean when another people judge you to be worth so little you were only to be killed? How our pride in everything was crushed so small it disappeared until it was just specks of things floating away on the wind. Where was my mother’s courage then? Was it dust too? We thought the world was called Turtle Island but it turned out it was not. What does that do to your heart, what did it do to mine? Nothing, nothing, nothing, we were nothing. I think about that and think it is the very rooftop of sadness. But maybe that was why Thomas McNulty and John Cole loved me, because I was the child of nothing.

- The narrator forced into a form of cross-dressing via expediency and employment

- The narrator forming a bond of circumstance and attraction, with a youngster of the same approximate age and sex – a bond that we suspect (and then is confirmed in passing in a passage) has become a relationship

- The two first meeting in an incident involving a gun and a bush/hedge

- The book’s ending involving a legal trial with the narrator as the accused, knowing their innocence but struggling to have it accepted

- A rather contrived resolution to the book’s tensions (actually I preferred “Days Without End” in that respect)

Some other areas I felt strong and with both timeless and contemporary:

Winona’s shame about telling anyone but Rosalee about her rape:

That they would consider me defiled as the preachers might say and that not even Rosalee could sew me good again and that not even a spring and summer could redeem that filthy winter. That now I would be a bargain of no price and just a slave’s linsey of no value and now the whippoorwill would never sound for me again nor would Thomas McNulty show me his motherly kindness nor John Cole his fatherly concern. That they might want then to deposit me on the road as a Confederate dollar of no worth to be picked up by any wanderer, that I was to be a thing discarded and no one ever sent for my retrieval. That in breaking the tiny door into myself [my attacker] had left the house of myself ever open to the winds, to the howls of the storms, and the ransack of any passing marauder.

Winona’s realisation that the defeated rebels, for all their hatred of blacks and Indians, shared some of the same sense of sorrow and defeat, and feel deeply alienated from the new rules of the world, despite all their apparent advantage and privilege:

I could sense in all they said the danger, the sorrow. As a child of sorrow I could hear the under-songs in what they spoke of. The fall of things that had been precious, the rise of trouble and the taking away of joys. It was one of those strange times when I understood the whiteman better. That in his own sphere of suffering he was not unlike myself, though he might scream at me for saying so. … In Tennessee, said the colonel, there were thousands of aggrieved souls like Zach Petrie. Men so disgruntled by the war they couldn’t breathe the air of peace, it choked them. And were such that no new times could please them, no matter how close they came to what they had fought for.

Overall I think your views on this book are likely to match closely your views on “Days Without End” – and my rating is the same as for that book.

My thanks to Faber and Faber for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

’Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.’ - SENECA

’I am Winona.
In early times I was Ojinjintka, which means rose. Thomas McNulty tried very hard to say this name, but he failed, and so he gave me my dead cousin’s name because it was easier in his mouth. Winona means first-born. I was not first-born.’

Her family - mother, sister, cousins, aunts had all been killed. She knew this, although she didn’t remember it, or perhaps couldn’t bring herself to relive the memories. By the time she returned to her people, she no longer recalled the language well enough to speak to them, to respond to their questions.

’Only when I spoke our language could they really see me.’

And then she left again, with Thomas McNulty, and they returned to Tennessee.

’In the eyes of the Great Mystery we were all souls alike. Trying to make our souls skinny enough to squeeze into paradise. That’s what my mother said. Everything I remember of my mother is like the little pouch of things that a child carries to hold what is precious to her. When such a love is touched by Death then something deeper even than Death grows in your heart.’

Where Days Without End was narrated by Thomas McNulty, this is Winona’s / Ojinjintka’s story to tell, and Barry shares it beautifully.

Winona lives with Thomas McNulty and John Cole, has lived with them since they rescued her. They live on their farm in Tennessee, they have seen to her education and surrounded her with love. Winona, in turn, recognizes all they have done for her, and has a job working for a lawyer as his bookkeeper.

The environment where they live doesn’t take kindly to those who come from a “different” background, those who have different political views, or those who question those views. Those kinds of people are a threat to them, to the way that they live, and all they hold dear - a life where only the select few can move ahead, be considered worthy. Be considered as people, and not some ‘thing.’ They are threatened by the idea that they should accept someone regardless of anything that they view as “different.” As if the idea of people growing, learning, and accepting is revolutionary.

A lovely, heartfelt follow-up to ’Days Without End’

[Hanneke · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I found ‘A Thousand Moons’ not as brilliant and exciting as its predecessor ‘Days without End’, it certainly told an interesting story of general life and attitudes in 1870s Tennessee. The story is told from the viewpoint of the adopted Lakota Indian girl, Winona, rescued in ‘Days without End’ by Thomas McNulty and John Cole. I assume that the novel provides us with a fairly realistic view on how an Indian girl was looked upon as a person at the time. They were a rarity to see in Tennessee since all Indian tribes were slaughtered or driven off to the north of America. I can understand that Sebastian Barry wanted to explore the attitudes towards black people and Indians at the time and that was interesting. The novel has a rather sad ending and how could you expect otherwise?

[Peter Boyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sebastian Barry's previous novel caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting to like Days Without End so much, but its tale of love and war on the American plains really stirred my emotions. I was more than eager to read the sequel.

A Thousand Moons is narrated by Winona, the Native American girl adopted by John Cole and Thomas McNulty in the earlier story. She lives with the couple and the Bouguereau siblings on the Tennessee farm of Lige Magan, making an unconventional but happy family. Things change when Jas Jonski, a local shop clerk, declares his love for Winona and intentions to marry her. She is initially excited and flattered, but a vicious assault knocks her sideways. Winona is so discombobulated that she cannot remember the exact details of the attack. However, she has an inclination that Jonski was involved. Then her friend Tennyson Bouguereau, an ex-slave, is beaten in an unprovoked assault. She rides out with the Freedmen militia to avenge these crimes and ends up with a lot more than she bargained for.

There are some truly beautiful sentences in this book. Like how Winona describes Thomas McNulty's rare temper, a man that has lived through the horror of the Civil War:

"The rage of Thomas McNulty was very simple. It happened seldom but when it did it was like the anger of righteous angels. He knew the absolute menace of the world. He knew it was a place so knotted with evil that good could only hope to unknot a few tiny threads of it."

Or when she seeks the counsel of John Cole on a difficult, delicate matter:

"He said nothing for a long while. He was struggling to surface from a deep deep pool of difficulty. Then his face opened again like that spot in the woods touched suddenly by stray sunlight."

Winona is eternally grateful to have people like Thomas and John Cole in her life, and prays that one day she will know a love like theirs:

"Where John Cole abided, there was to be found Thomas with his simple heart. Their love was the first commandment of my world - Thou shalt hope to love like them. We have all to meet many souls and hearts along the way - we are obliged to - we must pray we can encounter one or two Thomases and John Coles on that journey. Then we can say life was worth the living and love was worth the gamble."

All that being said, I believe that A Thousand Moons isn't quite as compelling as Days Without End. Winona's jumbled recollection of events doesn't help things, and I found myself a little frustrated at her muddy account. I did enjoy the period detail and the convincing Reconstruction-era setting that Sebastian Barry depicts. But where the novel really succeeds is in its portrayal of love - the electric attraction, the intoxicating rush of it, how important it is to cling on for dear life when you find that precious spark. The kind of connection we all dream about, and one that some of us are lucky enough to attain.

[Marialyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars sadly!

There is so much that affects the way we read, what we like, and how we view the world an author creates through his words. So, knowing and loving Sebastian Barry as I do, I was ever so anxious to read this continuing story of some already met characters in the previous book, Days Without End.

However, as brilliant as I often found Barry to be in his ability to turn the written word into beautiful prose, this book seemed, while having some highly emotional, feeling parts, to later descend into a story that become tedious and laborious.

Certainly the ills, the hard life, the uncivil and racially awful experiences that were practiced by many at the end of the Civil War against the blacks and Indians was abhorrent and yet they did occur and here Mr Barry makes us well aware of this. I believe it to be the novel's strong point., making us see life through the eyes of Winona, Ojinjintka, being her Lokata name. However, often I found myself drifting and would push the book aside because I knew I was at a point where the words were not breaking through.

So, although I found this book not to be as satisfying as I desired it to be, others will find much to like about this story. Sadly, this time, I was glad to see the book end although I will certainly read another of Mr Barry's future stories as he is a marvelous story teller.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Edelweiss for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review.

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Τα χίλια φεγγάρια φωτίζουν υπέρλαμπρα τη λυρική γραφή του Σεμπάστιαν Μπάρρυ, σε ένα μικρό μα τόσο περιεκτικό σε αξίες και ιδέες μυθιστόρημα.
Αποτελεί μια συναρπαστικά υπέροχη συνέχεια απο τις «μέρες δίχως τέλος» χωρίς να ακυρώνει την λογοτεχνική του πλοκή που μπορεί να σταθεί επάξια και σαν αυτόνομη ιστορία.
Μια ιστορία δίχως τέλος με χίλια φεγγάρια να μετρούν νύχτες, εγκλήματα, βιασμούς,βάναυσους ξυλοδαρμούς, δημόσιους φόνους, μακελειά, γενοκτονίες με συγκαλυμμένη βαρβαρότητα και νόμιμη βία στις δίνες του πολέμου, στο χάος της μετεμφυλιακής Αμερικής, πιο συγκεκριμένα σε ένα μαγεμένο απο ινδιάνικες δοξασίες αίματος και αγάπης, φτωχό αγρόκτημα του Τενεσί.
Με τι αριστοτεχνική δεξιοτεχνία μπόρεσε ένας Ιρλανδός να δώσει με την πένα του μια ιστορικά απόλυτα ακριβή αίσθηση του νότου που στολιζόταν σαν μακάβριο όνειρο από τους εφιάλτες και τα παραισθητικά ηλιοβασιλέματα των πρώην σκλάβων μπροστά στους βωμούς άνομης και άθεης θυσίας που είχαν προσκυνήσει οι γηγενείς Αμερικανοί, μεθυσμένοι απο μίσος και φόβο για την αγάπη, την αταίριαστη αγάπη σε όλες της τις βιοψυχολογικές, απαγορευμένες, ντροπιαστικές, ανοίκειες και νομοτελειακά φυσιολογικές εκφάνσεις σε κάθε παραφύση νοοτροπία, σε κάθε ηθική και συνειδησιακή αντιδιαστολή των κρυφών πόθων με τις φανερά κρυμμένες σαρκικές και υπέροχα διαστροφικές απολαύσεις του ανθρώπινου δράματος.





Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following on from Days Without End, 'A Thousand Moons' is told from Winona's point of view. With the end of the American civil war John Cole and Thomas McNulty have left their fighting (and theatrical) days behind them and settled down in Tennessee on Lige Magan's tobacco farm with Winona, their adopted Lakota Indian daughter. Together with freed slaves Tennyson and Rosalee Bouguereau, this odd assembly have formed a family of sorts and work the farm together. Winona is now grown and educated in writing and arithmetic and has a job with a kind and liberal minded lawyer keeping his books. She even has an admirer, Jas Jonski, who she has agreed to marry, although he is not liked by any of her family.

Despite her stable and contented home, life is still harsh for Winona with the farm barely scratching a living, racism rife and violent men released from the army roaming the country. Both Winona and Tennyson are attacked and beaten in incidents where they couldn't identify the attackers, leading to a series of events that erupt in violence and threaten the safety of Winona's existence.

Told with Barry's unique, lyrical and emotive prose, this is a tale of love and hate as Winona seeks justice for herself and Tennyson. She very much values the kindness and fairness of the lawyer Briscoe as well as the love and compassion she receives from Thomas and John and the love they have for each other ("Their love was the first commandment of my world - Thou shalt hope to love like them."). She is also coming to terms with her heritage and what she remembers of life with her mother and their tribe and realises this is an important part of herself. Although written on a less grand scale than 'Days Without Ends', this heartfelt novel gives a fine feel of the troubled times of that particular period of post civil war history and the courage and spirit of its most deprived people.

With thanks to Netgalley and Faber & Faber for a digital copy to read

[Yiannis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ευκολοδιάβαστο, υπέροχο. Ένας σπουδαίος συγγραφέας.

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Days Without End (2016). It's a masterpiece. A stunning, page turner of a book which also has an unusual and interesting take on gender identity and sexuality during the 19th century. Needless to say I was wanted to read A Thousand Moons (2020), the sequel, as I was keen to reacquaint myself with John Cole, Thomas McNulty, Winona et al.

A Thousand Moons is very readable and engrossing but sadly not a patch on its predecessor. Thomas and John, former soldiers and a loving couple, have now settled down on Lige Magan's farm in West Tennessee. Their oddly assorted community also includes ex-slaves Rosalee Bouguereau, her brother Tennyson, and Thomas and John's adopted daughter, Winona, a Native American orphan. Winona narrates A Thousand Moons and this change of perspective is somewhat jarring.

A Thousand Moons is worth reading if you like the characters, and there's plenty to enjoy and appreciate, however it lacks the richness and invention of Days Without End, and so, ultimately, is a disappointment.

3/5

[Chadwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

By way of preamble, I should say that DAYS WITHOUT END blew me away. It was entirely original and deeply moving. Sebastian Barry created a whole world and inhabited it with remarkable characters. I ended my review on this site with the hope that he would give us more novels inhabited by Thomas McNulty and John Cole and their loose clan.

Well, I got the follow-up novel I wanted. But it saddens me to say that I found it a bit disappointing.

There is much to appreciate and respect in A THOUSAND MOONS. Barry writes like an angel, and his prose is often as lovely as ever. His writing again gets at the terrible beauty of life in a special way. And he has given us yet another unsentimental book full of compassion and humanity. But for all his fine writing and manifestly good intentions, this one never quite clicked for me.

Everything wonderful about DAYS flowed from the pitch-perfect voice of Thomas McNulty. It was an amazing feat of literary ventriloquism. But I just could not find my way into the voice of his daughter, Winona, who narrates the sequel. Her voice often felt forced and off-key, and it never drew me into the story. It was another strength of DAYS that Barry gave us complex and fully realized characters, full of flaws and contradictions. The character development is pretty good here too. Winona, Rosalee, and lawyer Briscoe are all interesting. McNulty and Cole are here again, but for the most part we only see them as loving and well-meaning bystanders; they never fully inhabit the stage, and that is a damn shame. Too many of the other characters are one-dimensional and lifeless, existing merely to move the plot along.

And speaking of plot . . . that was the biggest problem for me. Barry gives us another heartbreaking story, full of brutality and the violent things we do to each other, as well as the love and courage that endure in the face of inhumanity. I liked the story I think he was trying to tell, but the plot itself was contrived and clumsy. The central mystery at the heart of things wasn't much of a mystery. Many scenes strained credulity (including a fairly preposterous ending that could have come right out of a "Scooby-Doo" episode). Mostly, it all just felt flat -- strangely lacking in drama and tension.

Still. I would rather read Sebastian Barry than most anyone else out there.

So, once again I will look forward to another installment of the McNulty saga, and once again I raise a glass to Sebastian Barry. Long may he keep writing.

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have anything very fresh to say about this book, a sequel to Days Without End which has a much narrower focus than that book. It is narrated by Winona, the native American girl adopted by Thomas McNulty and John Cole, and tells the story of just a few months in her life, and just a small part of rural Tennessee, as she is caught up in the political aftermath of the Civil War and becomes a pawn of unscrupulous local politicians and judges, as the confederate rebels start to regain ground.

Her first tentative romance ends when she is attacked and raped, and because this was preceded by drinking whisky she cannot remember exactly what happened. She befriends another native American girl who she meets on a raid to attack the rebels, and this leads to a romance that echos the relationship of the two men whose stories are told in the first book, and like the first book this one ends dramatically with a last gasp reprieve from a death sentence.

The book is lively enough and an easy read, but seemed a little disappointing and lightweight compared with its predecessor.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Days Without End. This is the sequel. It's set in the period following the war of independence when disorder is rife. The writing is again fabulously lyrical and the author's empathy with his characters and ability to bring them to life is excellent. But it fell a long way short of its predecessor for me. It never quite rang true. A good novel gives the feeling the plot is being shaped by the characters. In this novel you feel the plot has too much control over the central character. Some of the things she does which the plot needs her to do don't make much sense.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Thousand Moons continues the story of John Cole and Thomas McNulty but told from the point of view of Winona, the orphaned Indian girl they adopted. Although A Thousand Moons can be read as a standalone, I think you would be missing a literary treat in not reading Days Without End.

In a recent Faber Members’ Q&A, Sebastian Barry was asked if, when he completed Days Without End, he knew at that point he would write Winona’s story from her point of view in his next novel. He said he didn’t think so, partly because he wouldn’t dare to think he could, being in his words “a straight, white, old, Irish man”. However, he describes how Winona seemed to decide it for him, creeping very quietly into his workroom and instructing him to start. He said, “I borrowed a smidgen of her great courage and did.”

I think in that answer Sebastian Barry sums up his key achievement in A Thousand Moons, that of creating a distinctive and engaging narrative voice for Winona and communicating her resolve to take control of her life.  For the latter, she calls on the legacy of her mother and her Lakota heritage, recalling “Oh, but was I not the niece of a great leader, and the daughter of a warring woman?” And she has need of that courage when a dramatic event occurs which she scarcely understands but which she senses threatens the safety of the life John and Thomas have made for themselves.

“I come from the saddest story that ever was on the earth.  I’m one of the last to know what was taken from me and what was there before it was taken.” Along with everything she’s endured up until now, Winona has no illusions about her low status and the prejudice (and worse) she still faces. “The world wanted bad things to happen to Indian girls.” As she learns, an Indian isn’t regarded as a citizen and therefore has no protection from the law.

What I particularly liked about the book is the heartfelt, wise and non-judgmental view Winona gives the reader of the loving relationship between John Cole and Thomas McNulty.  “Their love was the first commandment of my world – Thou shalt hope to love like them.”  There is also a fabulous set of secondary characters all of whom, like Winona, Thomas and John, are in some way outsiders. Theses including Lige Magan, owner of the farm and Rosalee Bougereau and her brother, Tennyson, both ex-slaves.    A particularly lovely scene is the celebrations on the farm for Whit Monday when having feasted on roast sucklin pig, Lige picks up his fiddle, Thomas McNulty dons a dress from his performing days, Rosalee sings songs and Winona performs Lakota dances. It’s a time, Winona reflects, “when love was palpable between us. And the way that John Cole touched Thomas”s back as the two of them stood watching in the long shadows of May.”

Thomas and John’s love is also directed towards Winona, for which she is daily grateful, musing “How was I so lucky to have these good-as-women men?”  However, the reader is reminded there can be a good and bad side to everyone. As depicted in Days Without End, Thomas and John were both soldiers involved in violence against the Lakota tribe. Yet they also killed to protect Winona and took her in to become part of their unconventional ‘family’.

As you might expect from a book by Sebastian Barry there is some wonderful writing.  For example, Winona’s description of herself as “a fragment, a torn leaf, torn away from the plains” or her description of her ‘mother and father’ (as she has come to think of them), “John Cole, the keel of my boat. Thomas the oars and the sails.”

There is a lot to love about A Thousand Moons.  My one slight reservation was I found the way the repercussions of the dramatic event referred to earlier was wrapped up a little rushed and unconvincing. However, the final scene was everything I hoped for. 

[George K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Δεύτερο βιβλίο του Σεμπάστιαν Μπάρι που διαβάζω, μετά το καταπληκτικό "Μέρες δίχως τέλος" που διάβασα τον Ιούλιο του 2018. Το "Χίλια φεγγάρια" ουσιαστικά αποτελεί συνέχεια εκείνου του βιβλίου, και μπορεί κατά τη γνώμη μου να μην το φτάνει σε δύναμη, όμως είναι και αυτό αρκούντως καλογραμμένο, ενδιαφέρον και ιδιαίτερο, αναμφισβήτητα άξιο του αναγνωστικού σας χρόνου. Η γλώσσα παραμένει πολύ όμορφη, πότε λυρική και πότε λίγο πιο ωμή -αν και η αφήγηση δεν μου φάνηκε εξίσου καθηλωτική με το προηγούμενο βιβλίο (ίσως γιατί αυτή τη φορά την ιστορία την αφηγείται η έφηβη Γουινόνα, και όχι ο Τόμας ΜακΝάλτι)-, ενώ η όλη ατμόσφαιρα είναι σαφώς εξαιρετική. Η ιστορία είναι οπωσδήποτε ενδιαφέρουσα, με δόσεις κοινωνικού δράματος και βίας, έστω και αν σε ορισμένα σημεία τείνει λίγο προς το μελόδραμα. Ο συγγραφέας, μέσω της πλοκής και των χαρακτήρων του, αγγίζει ξανά κάποια ευαίσθητα θέματα που μας απασχολούν ακόμα και σήμερα, χωρίς να ηθικολογεί και να μας κουνάει το δάχτυλο. Είναι ασυζητητί ένα πολύ καλογραμμένο και ιδιαίτερο βιβλίο, μίγμα ιστορικού μυθιστορήματος, ιστορίας ενηλικίωσης και γουέστερν, γεμάτο εικόνες και συναισθήματα, το οποίο συν τοις άλλοις έχει τη δύναμη να μεταφέρει τον αναγνώστη πίσω στον χρόνο, σε έναν σκληρό μα συνάμα συναρπαστικό κόσμο. Υ.Γ. Προτείνω να διαβάσετε πρώτα το "Μέρες δίχως τέλος", και μετά αυτό.

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Страхотно написана книга!

[Iliyana Vacheva · Rating 4 out of 5]

В тази малка на пръв поглед книжка е събрана една голяма по сила житейска история. От първо лице главната ни героиня Уинона ни повежда в един разказ за несправедливости, трудни времена и за това как топлите лъчи на обичта могат да пробият и най-мрачните облаци.
Уинона е индианка, осиновена от двамата войници Томас Макнълти и Джон Коул след като племето й - лакота е сполетяно от огромна жестокост. В тяхно лице тя открива семейство, готово на всичко за да й осигури най-доброто. Времената обаче са тежки, статусът на една индианка в Америка е по-нисък дори и от този на наскоро освободените роби и това я среща с много трудности в житейския й път.

Себастиан Бари пише изключително елегантно и красиво, дори когато през разказа на младото момиче ставаме свидетели на жестоки събития няма как да не оценим красотата на думите му. Той е сътворил един чудесен образ в лицето на Уинона, една толкова добра и чиста душа и я подлага на изпитания, които малко хора биха преживели.
Както споменах, това е история за несправедливости, трудни вре��ена и обич. Силно се надявах накрая справедливостта да възтържествува, както би направил и всеки читател на мое място, защото неусетно и за кратко време героите от книгата ми станаха близки, привързаха ме към себе си и бях съпричастна с всичко, на което са подложени.

Ценител съм на хубавите корици, но рядко се влюбвам така, както в тази на “Хиляда луни”. Дори оформлението отвътре има един много красив детайл, но няма да ви кажа какъв, за да засиля още любопитството ви. Оцених и заигравката със заглавието, определено много интересно парченце от пъзела на цялостната красота на тази книга. Историята обаче не е никак лека, въпреки начина, по който е поднесена, но отгърнете ли “Хиляда луни” ще обикнете тази млада индианка и ще съпреживеете нейните изпитания.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Returning to the world of Days Without End, this features Thomas McNulty and John Cole but the voice and story is that of a young Native American woman orphaned in the brutal Indian Wars and adopted in a makeshift family. Again Barry gives us a story of violence tempered by compassion, of prejudice and inequality offset by love and generosity of spirit. The voice isn't always convincing but this is such a humane tale, as (or more?) relevant for our own toxic times as it is an evocation of America's past, that I could forgive the stylisation. A big-hearted book. 3.5 stars as it's sometimes too stylized to be completely believable.

ARC via NetGalley

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Thousand Moons is the sequel to 2017's shattering Days Without End. Ten years have passed since Tom McNulty and John Cole arrived in West Tennessee with their adopted Lakota Sioux daughter, Winona. The Civil War may have ended a decade ago but beneath the veneer of peace, resentments fester and cloaked goons prowl the night.

McNulty and Cole have settled on a farm outside the small town of Paris. Their tiny, winsome household has also welcomed Rosalee and Tennyson Bouguereau, siblings and former slaves. Winona, now 16, still dreams of her Lakota family that was slaughtered in the Indian Wars. Preternaturally gifted with numbers, Winona keeps accounts for a local attorney, Briscoe, who champions racial justice in this former-Confederate community.

She is returned home one night, bloody and broken, but unable to recall who attacked and brutally raped her. Shortly after, farmhand Tennyson is beaten nearly to death. These violent outrages launch Winona on a pursuit of vengeance into Tennessee's lawless wilds.

It's not necessary to have read Days Without End , but it would go a long way toward understanding the context of the story, who McNulty and Cole are, and how Winona entered their lives. There is some revelation of backstory, but without the complete details, the present circumstances might feel wobbly and inexplicable.

As the novel's narrator, Winona's vernacular and her vision are imbued with Barry's blend of intense and violent realism and lyrical web-weaving. It's like being dropped into a fever-dream— difficult to separate the sleeping nightmares from the waking ones.

A Thousand Moons feels less grounded and fleshed out than its prequel. Winona's ethereal presence and voice lend a fairy-tale like quality to the narrative that distances the reader from the very real history of her tribe's slaughter and the beginnings of Jim Crow in the South.

Still, this new entry expands the gorgeous multi-book saga of the McNulty and Dunne families. Sebastian Barry's talent in creating these stories that link the Irish immigrants and the American experiment defies superlatives. He is simply an extraordinary writer.

[Come Musica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sebastian Barry ha scritto davvero un gran bel romanzo storico, con una prosa vibrante, lirica e sublime, ricca di metafore.
Ambientato nel 1870, durante la guerra civile nel Tennessee, non solo è la storia di Winona, che “significa la primogenita. Io non ero la primogenita.”, ma è la storia di un'intera tribù, i Lakota, che erano considerati dagli uomini bianchi meno di niente, subumani senza alcun diritto.

“Per loro non eravamo niente. Adesso ripenso a quanto valevamo per noi stessi e mi domando cosa vuol dire quando un altro popolo decide che vali cosí poco che può solo ammazzarti. A come la nostra fierezza era stata schiacciata fino a ridursi in frammenti talmente minuscoli che il vento li aveva spazzati via tutti. Dov’era piú il coraggio di mia madre? Anche quello ridotto in polvere? Per noi il mondo si chiamava «Isola della Tartaruga», ma poi avevo scoperto che non era il nome vero. Cosa prova il tuo cuore in un momento cosí, cosa provò il mio?
Niente, niente, niente, non eravamo niente. Ci ripenso e mi sembra che è proprio il massimo della tristezza.”

Prima di essere Winona, era “Ojinjintka, che significa rosa. Thomas McNulty ci aveva provato e riprovato ma non riusciva a dirlo, cosí alla fine mi diede il nome di mia cugina morta perché in bocca gli veniva piú facile.” Winona, che ha perso la madre, vive in una famiglia non convenzionale, formata da Thomas McNulty e John Cole, che dividono la fattoria con Lige Magan e con due ex schiavi neri, Rosalee e Tennyson.

In questo ambiente ostile, la piccola Winona cresce coltivando la fierezza propria del suo popolo e quando sente il coraggio venirle meno, invoca sempre lo spirito della madre a riempire il suo essere: “Nella nostra tribú mia madre era famosa per il suo grande coraggio. Una volta che gli uomini erano via una banda di crow nostri nemici si era spinta fin nei pressi del villaggio. C’erano soltanto le donne, i bambini e gli anziani. Quei crow potevano portarci via tutto e ucciderci o fare quello che gli pareva. Mia madre allora lasciò il nostro gruppetto e raggiunse il margine del campo dove i crow si erano radunati. Li salutò amichevolmente e cominciò a parlargli e ben presto stavano parlando tutti in modo tranquillo e non so come il disastro fu scongiurato dalla magia del suo coraggio. Dopo continuarono a ricordare quel momento come una cosa sacra e lei era molto riverita per questo. ”

Ed è lo spirito fiero e coraggioso della madre ad aiutare Winona a crescere. E se all'inizio si traveste da ragazzo, per difendersi, poi scopre che è questa la sua vera natura.

"Viene il momento che sei quel che sei, senza troppi fronzoli. Te lo senti."

Winona imparerà anche a ricomporsi, ad attraversare la palude dei suoi ricordi, per affrontare i suoi traumi e portare a galla la verità. "Adesso la nebbia si era dispersa e aveva rivelato il vero e grande paesaggio che c’era dietro, come il bel Tennessee quando la primavera si scrolla i capelli e spalanca le braccia per darsi una stiracchiata. E nelle sue parole c’era una frustata di terrore ma anche la deposizione della frusta."

A guidarla sarà sempre sua madre.
"Ero sorpresa di scoprire che dovevo aver vissuto mille lune. Lei mi assomigliava cosí tanto: non come un’ombra, come una persona vera, viva. Mi sorrideva ed era bellissimo."

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If I say that here following are the real events, you will remember that they are described at a great distance from the time of their happening. And that there is no one to agree to or challenge my account, now. Some of it I am inclined to challenge myself, because I say to myself, could that really have happened, and did I really do that? But we only have one path across the mire of remembrance in general.”

A Thousand Moons is the eighth novel by award-winning Irish author, Sebastian Barry, and is the sequel to Days Without End. Later in life, the Lakota woman that Thomas McNulty renamed Winona because he couldn’t pronounce her own name (Ojinjintka) looks back on certain events of the mid-1870s: what occurred after Thomas’s return from serving time at Fort Leavenworth.

Her disclaimer: “It could be I am talking about things that occurred in Henry County, Tennessee in 1873 or 4, but I have never been so faithful on dates. And if they did occur, there was no true account of them at the time. There were bare facts, and a body, and then there were the real events that no one knew.”

At about seventeen years of age, gainfully employed by the lawyer Briscoe, engaged to be married to Jas Janski, Winona Cole is assaulted after being plied with whiskey. It might be the nineteenth-Century version of date-rape, but her memory is blank, just like when her family were massacred by the army. She can’t say who her attacker was.

As much as her “family”, Thomas, John Cole, Lige Magan and freed slaves Rosalee and Tennyson Bouguereau, want justice, Winona understands that it can’t be had through the law: assault of an Indian is not considered a crime. After all: “‘An Indian ain’t a citizen and the law don’t apply in the same way,’ said the lawyer Briscoe.”

While the sheriff warns them off taking their own action, Jas Janksi’s words subsequently see Tennyson badly beaten, and Winona decides she must fight her own battles. And in the midst of one of those, she meets (at the end of a gun) and falls in love with Peg, a Chickasaw girl. But will that help her when she’s standing trial for murder?

Winona is under no illusion about her precarious position in society: “Whitemen in the main just see slaves and Indians. They don’t see the single souls. How all are emperors to those that love them” and “We were nothing to them. I think now of the great value we put on what we were and I wonder what does it mean when another people judge you to be worth so little you were only to be killed? How our pride in everything was crushed so small it disappeared until it was just specks of things floating away on the wind” succinctly illustrate this.

No doubt because of her own history, Winona can also see from the perspective of the disenfranchised Rebel soldiers, despite their Night Raider activities against Union supporters. It’s a talented male author who can make the voice of a 19th Century Lakota orphan sound authentic, but of course, that describes Sebastian Barry perfectly.

He is especially gifted at conveying the love between the members of this makeshift family: “I had the wound of being a lost child. Thing was it was they that healed me, Thomas McNulty and John Cole. They had done their damnedest I guess. So they both gave me the wound and healed it, which is a hard fact in its way” and “Just because John Cole raised me up as something so gold, he said, that the sun itself was jealous of me, didn’t mean anyone else in the wide world thought that” and “John Cole, the keel of my boat. Thomas the oars and the sails” are examples.

All Barry’s descriptive prose is, of course, exquisite: “A high cold sky was speckled with stray blues and greys like a bird’s egg. But a reluctant sunlight was trying to measure the height of the sky with long thin veins.” “I could feel myself melting away. I thought I was like water but I had no cup to hold me. How small I felt. World didn’t care, I knew that.” Another superlative read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Faber and Faber.

[Bart · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** 5 ***

[Rob Twinem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sebastian Barry writes in a certain literary style that you will either warm to or, as in my case, you will find his prose difficult to appreciate. The story is set against the American civil was and concerns a young Lacota Indian girl called Winona Cole who is adopted by William MrNulty and John cole. Through her eyes we are witness to persecution and hatred displayed everyday against a diminishing indigenous Lacota tribe. Whilst the story has merit and the events set against a harsh and unforgiving environment makes for difficult and at times challenging reading, it was not a story I particularly enjoyed.