SOURCE: "Breaking the Rules," in Times Literary Supplement, November 28, 1986, p. 1344.

In the following review, Hayes applauds Fox's break with conventional teen-novel themes in The Moonlight Man, noting the complexity of emotion and mild didacticism of the novel.

Catherine's father is late picking her up from boarding school—three weeks late. And instead of spending the summer in Rockport, as she had expected, he takes her to an odd little house in Nova Scotia at the back end of nowhere. Catherine knew her father would turn up eventually. She knew he would charm and entertain her in unexpected ways. She knew she would be disarmed. She did not know that her father was an alcoholic.

The word alcoholic is never used. Mr Ames is a drunk, a lush, a moonshine man; not a "problem". This is not a novel about learning to live with alcoholism, but a portrait of...