When they took away the man in the moon

the long version

When They Took Away the Man in the Moon is a powerful and provocative novel of self-discovery that explores the crystalline terrain of childhood memory, the tangle of family roots, and the unreasonable expectations we have for our very modern lives. H. A. Reese is a high-powered political consultant with a reputation for rescuing candidates from their own bungling. Born in Texas, tempered by Washington, and newly arrived on the Boston scene, she is also forty-five, twice divorced, and a closet romantic who cannot understand why love, not sex, continues to elude her. As she enters the critical phase of a campaign for a candidate who may not be all he appears to be, H. A. finds her career and her life on hold while she grapples with her mother's sudden stroke back in Texas. By turns funny and gripping, when They Took Away the Man in the Moon is the story of a woman's reunions: with her home state, a place a person can leave but never completely escape... with a truly quirky family whose pioneer spirit continues to thrive... and, most of all, with herself. This deeply affecting, shrewdly knowing novel speaks to men and women who have found that in their careers, as in life, compromise is too often the name of the game.