The Last Quarter of the Moon
An elder shares her story in Chi Zijian’s reflective novel The Last Quarter of the Moon.
An unnamed Evenki woman laments the loss represented by her home’s emptiness. Her family voted to leave their mountains; modernization rendered their nomadic lifestyle all but obsolete. She resolves to live her last days in the same way she began, though, with the sky above her and the earth below her.
At the age of ninety and in a somber mood, the narrator decides to tell her family’s story. She recalls the winter night she was born and the sound of her family members celebrating a successful bear hunt. As she grows, so, too, does her understanding of the relationships around her and the regular ebb and flow of a life lived following the herd.
Observant, the narrator discusses marriages, births, and deaths with the same reverence devoted to tending to the reindeer herd that sustains their livelihood. She keeps her opinions to herself, even when recounting dark memories of abuse and child loss. She takes pains to show each member of her clan in their full humanity. The nature of her storytelling, however, means that she does offer her audience occasional asides.
The book’s four sections mirror the four seasons in the narrator’s life: her childhood and young adulthood, marriage and motherhood, her middle-aged years, and her twilight years. The enthralling prose invites close reading to absorb and parse out the intricacies of her family and its generations of inhabitants, with rich reflections on animal husbandry, Evenki customs, folklore, and history included.
The Last Quarter of the Moon is a poetic novel that memorializes a way of being centered on the bonds of family and harmony with the rhythms of nature.
Reviewed by
Dontaná McPherson-Joseph
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
