Essays
A New Moon on the 13th? How often does that happen?
March is here, and it’s a very exciting month for me. First of all, my calendar tells me there’s a new moon on the 13th. How often does that happen? Never before in my lifetime! What do they do with the old moon? Where do they put it? Is there a buyer who will salvage something from it, or does it just get thrown away? I suppose Elon Musk is providing the new moon, so it’s probably going to look a lot cooler than the old one, with none of those craters, though if there’s a face in the new one, it’s most likely going to have that strange grin of his that we all find a little disturbing.
On the 14th, Daylight Saving Time begins, and we’re all advised to spring forward. Last year, I sprang forward too exuberantly, fell, and broke a thumb. This year I intend to slide forward with caution, even if violating the federal mandate to spring might result in being sent to a reeducation camp.
On the 17th, it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, when we celebrate Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland. As I understand it, the hardest part of the task was hiring enough buses to convey such a large number of serpents, not to mention the difficulty of keeping them in their seats.
Not least of all, this is a very exciting month for me because my new novel, The Other Emily, will be published on March 23rd. This is a love story, but scarier and also more believable than King Kong and Fay Wray. In my story, when she was 25, Emily Carlino was a victim of a serial killer, her body never found. Ten years later, the love of Emily’s life, David Thorne, encounters her lookalike, who claims to be Maddison Sutton. She still appears to be 25, and she is eerily like Emily in every way. All that she tells David of her past is a lie. If she is Emily, if she never died, where has she been? If she lives again, what is she?
Writing that last bit, I just gave myself a chill. I hope you’ll get a copy of The Other Emily and perhaps read it under the new Musk moon.
