The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Keane, Mary Beth. The Half Moon. Scriber, 2023.

Mary Beth Keane’s third person limited narrative, The Half Moon, follows the experiences of Malcolm and Jess, an estranged couple, as they navigate loss and grief. The novel takes places over the course of several days, when the small town, Gillam, is shut down after a snowstorm. At the outset of the narrative, Malcolm closed the Half Moon before the storm. While the bar was busy with commuters and regulars when he arrived, a fight broke out and he shut down early. As he bussed tables, his close friends, Patrick and Siobhán told him that Jess was living with Neil. He felt ignorant for not knowing about their affair beforehand and struggled to imagine his wife with a man whose face he could not remember. The next day, when he was snowed into the house, Malcolm attempted to keep himself busy. He had avoided thinking about Jess and the decline of their marriage but in the silence his mind turned to memories from their life together. When she was twenty-five, and he was thirty, Jess found out that she was pregnant. They decided to get married right away, hopeful that their careers would flourish, and they would be prepared to welcome the baby. However, Jess lost the pregnancy shortly afterward.

Twelve years after her first miscarriage, Hugh Lyndon, the owner of the Half Moon bar, offered to sell the establishment to Malcolm. He and Jess had spent the majority of their saving on IVF treatments over the past years and Malcolm felt that it was his turn to pursue a dream. The hormonal therapies had been unsuccessful, and he was reluctant to continue trying for a baby. Together, they agreed to purchase just the business, as purchasing the building as well would mean having to make a side deal with Hugh. However, Malcom decided to make the deal with Hugh without telling Jess. When she found out, she felt betrayed. In the years preceding the purchase of the bar, Malcolm and Jess’s relationship had been strained. She felt isolated in her grief and loss as she suffered multiple miscarriages and the disappointment of not making partner at the bar. When she met Neil, at Patrick and Siobhán’s barbeque, she enjoyed feeling desired. The newness of his touch and gaze relieved the emotional turmoil that she had experienced with Malcolm.

In the narrative present, Jess and Malcolm spoke for the first time in months in the driveway of Neil’s house. She asked him if he thought it was possible to start over. She had an idea but wanted him to think about what it would mean to start a new life before she told him. The next day at the Half Moon, Jess suggested that Malcolm put a space heater in the basement that would cause the cardboard boxes and chemicals to set fire. If the bar burned during the power outage, it would not look like insurance fraud. She believed that this was their only chance to be free of Hugh’s deal and start a new life. Malcolm considered the idea but decided that he could not go through with it. Later, Jess packed her things at Neil’s and returned to the house. The couple drove to South Carolina together to confront Hugh. Jess had discovered that Hugh signed over the deed to the land, that the Half Moon sat on, to Malcolm’s father in the 1970s. Another buyer would never have purchased the building or business under the same conditions. She told him that they would sign the deed over if Hugh dissolved the deal with Malcolm. As they drove home, Malcolm grieved the loss of his bar but knew that he had regained Jess in the process. When he spoke with his friend Adrian, shortly after, his friend told him about a business opportunity on St. John. Malcolm applied to the bar managing position in the Caribbean and the couple decided to leave Gillam.