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    The Pull of the Moon
    The Pull of the Moon
    The Pull of the Moon
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Pull of the Moon

    Written by Elizabeth Berg

    Narrated by Elizabeth Berg

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Best-selling author Elizabeth Berg has published fiction and nonfiction in The New York Times Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, and New Woman. She has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for her graceful, witty writing. In The Pull of the Moon, she alternates letters and journal entries to trace a middle-aged woman's impulsive, and solitary, drive across country. Can the middle age years still hold as much promise as the full moon of youth? Nan has no answer to that question, but she knows that the moon of her life is on the wane. As she drives away from home, turning the wheel toward an uncertain future, Nan begins to contemplate her relationships with her husband and her daughter. Slowly, over nights spent in highway motels, and meals eaten in booth-lined diners, she regains a focus in her life that she had given up for lost. Funny, poignant, and often dazzling, Elizabeth Berg's novel will instantly appeal to women of all ages. From the moments spent studying the time lines of her body to Nan's re-examination of what keeps her in her marriage, each word resonates with gentle honesty and growing strength.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 18, 2011
    ISBN9781456124441
    The Pull of the Moon
    Author

    Elizabeth Berg

    Elizabeth Berg is the award-winning author of more than twenty-five books, including the New York Times bestsellers True to Form, Never Change, Open House, The Story of Arthur Truluv, Night of Miracles, and The Confession Club. She lives outside of Chicago. Find out more at Elizabeth-Berg.net.

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    Reviews for The Pull of the Moon

    4/5

    305 ratings24 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved this book! I found it to be a quick read. The story seems implausible but the concept is enticing to any middle age woman evaluating her life, a sort of mid life crisis. The author uses humor to describe the woman's journey of self awareness through letters to her husband. I laughed out loud!
    • 3/5
      I have mixed feelings about this book. Much of what the author says is true. The character feels real and is going through things that I imagine most of us experience at the middle point of our lives. Nan has a midlife crisis that doesn't involve getting a young boyfriend and buying a sportscar, but reevaluating herself in relation to those around her.The thing that was difficult for me was the fact that Nan even had the means to have her little meltdown. No job, plenty of money, an extra car - let's hit the road! I have to have my midlife crisis between work and kids and bills, etc.!Overall, a quick and enjoyable read.
    • 3/5
      Elizabeth Berg has written a total of 24 books. The Pull of the Moon was her fourth. With a couple of nonfiction titles here and there, she mostly writes contemporary fiction for women.Nan and her husband, Martin, are well-off, some would say rich, and their daughter has gone off to college. But as Nan turns 50-years old, something is missing. It’s more than that her periods have stopped. She feels as if life as passed her by. Leaving a note off Martin, she takes off on a road trip. Following wherever the road takes her, she drifts along, trying to sort out what she truly feels. Every day, as promised, she send a letter to Martin to let him know that she is safe.I like the way this book is written. It opens with her first letter to Martin, then is followed by her thoughts (it’s not stream of consciousness). The reader never hears from Martin. This is only Nan’s story.Personally I thought the plot was a silly. There’s not much of a story arc and, for me, no reason, to turn the page. Yet I read every one of them, hoping to some real insight. Nan might have fit the stereotypical 1950s woman, but in 2014, it misses the mark.I give The Pull of the Moon 3 out of 5 stars.
    • 3/5
      Interesting idea--woman turns 50 and takes a mid-life crises trip to visit off the path places and actually interacts with total strangers. Writes to her husband every day. Kinda odd.
    • 5/5
      Every woman should read this book. Do you ever just want to take off and leave everything behind? We all do.

      August, 2011. I don't remember the date I first read this book; maybe 8-10 years ago. I pulled it out this morning and am finding the re-read to be equally as stimulating. Elizabeth Berg really gets to the heart of various thoughts and feelings women have in all the phases of our lives. I still believe every woman should read this book!
    • 3/5
      This was a quick and intriguing read. Nan is fifty, and finds herself adrift. Her child is grown, her husband seemingly self-absorbed. So one day Nan leaves. No, she doesn't leave permanently, at least we think not. But the story alternates between letters to her husband and her personal journal entries as she tries to remember herself and reconnect that parts of herself that went adrift during the years. As is usually the case with Elizabeth Berg, there are layers and layers to Nan's character and it's worth reading to see her uncover them.
    • 2/5
      No accounting for tests, I suppose. I wanted to meet the author while I was suffering through this paean to shallowness, but I'm sure it's better that I didn't.
    • 1/5
      This book struck me as impossibly phony. A woman decides to go on an impromptu road trip to find herself after her adult daughter leaves home and her husband is a bit neglectful. She meets several stereotypically ordinary people along the way, all of whom have nothing better to do than be a prop in Nan's journey of self-discovery. When Nan is alone, she does ridiculous things like attempt to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner in a motel cabin kitchen. The protagonist's concerns about aging are handled superficially, by having her spend a night alone outdoors and write a letter to her husband ordering him to build her a shabby chic beach house (described in Martha Stewart-esque detail) for their retirement home. I just could not relate to this shallow woman at all. The writing is competent but nothing special, although there are occasional flashes of humor. On the whole the book seemed half-baked -- a good premise ruined by indifferent execution.
    • 4/5
      Gentle and subtle story telling
    • 2/5
      I keep running across Ms. Berg's books at my library, and find myself drawn to them because they are described as witty and lyrical prose. And yet, I can't agree. This was the 3rd book of hers I've read, and like the others, I felt no affinity for the protagonist, and no real interest in her life or journey. I just don't understand the appeal of this writer.
    • 4/5
      A Berg classic. Interesting story about a woman who lives her husband and goes on the road in order to understand herself and her relationship. Good insights despite the slightly-too-happy ending. Not heavy but it fitted me like a soft old jumper.
    • 3/5
      Yes, Nan is wrapped up in herself, but Ms. Berg writes so honestly that I find myself often in her characters. I enjoyed this one - and often feel like just jumping in the car and riding off!
    • 4/5
      I have read a lot of reviews of this book, but honestly self-indulgence aside I thought this was lovely to read. I loved her prose, and her way of illustrating in my mind what she was writing by use of her language throughout the book. I loved this story no matter how unbelievable it was to some critics, and there are people in this world who live their life for their children and husband and lose track of themselves. Brilliant, and my first but not last Berg.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book I've read by Elizabeth Berg and I was not disappointed. I found the story compelling and was drawn into Nan's journey right away. As a middle age woman I can relate to Nan. And really, haven't most of us thought of just getting in the car and driving away as Nan does? And use that time alone to come to terms with our life and our relationships?
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book a great deal. I thought the writing was very honest and many times I read things I have thought myself. I liked the way the book was all about the one character and how she lost herself in her life.
    • 5/5
      In Pull of the Moon, you follow along with Nan on both her physical and emotional journeys, shared with you through her diary entries and letters to her loved ones.Nan is fifty, married with a grown daughter, and she has reached that point that I think many women reach at some point. She has spent her life as a wife and a mother, and has forgotten who SHE is, and now is consumed by the additional fear of losing her youth and desirability as she faces the physical changes of menopause. So she packs up, hops in the car, and just leaves her husband with a note of apology. She travels around the country, getting to know herself again, remembering who she is and what she likes and what she wants, while writing in her diary and writing letters to her husband to share with him the discoveries that she is making along the way.I'll just say it. I LOVED this book. I can't truly identify with Nan. I've never lost my identity. Perhaps it's because I've never had children, and I've been divorced for ten years. So I have been able to maintain a better sense of my self. Perhaps it's just because I have a very strong knowledge of "who I am", as I never had any fear of losing myself during my ten years of marriage either.So I found myself not really identifying with this place where Nan had found herself: feeling lost, depressed and on the verge of losing her mind along with her identity. However I could still identify with HER. She is every woman, on the basest of levels. And I love the way that author Elizabeth Berg causes me to turn the mirror on myself with a little "Aha!"I like Nan. I like how she reminds me of things that I haven't thought of for a long time, I like when she makes observations like "...and soon we were all laughing, it was the kind of thing where the laughter feeds on itself, where the sound of someone else's snorting and wheezing keeps you going until you don't even know why you started laughing in the first place-- and you don't care. It's so good for you, that kind of hard laughter, so cleansing-- you feel like your liver's been held up and hosed down, your heart relieved of a million grimy weights." I remember that feeling, although it's been a long time since I felt it. Remember sitting around with your girlfriends, giggling hysterically, and someone would ask what was so funny, and you'd just shake your head and say "I don't know", look at each other, and laugh even harder?I love the clear and descriptive visual analogies of statements like "Today I woke up and felt the old pull of sadness back. It's like a robe that is too heavy, weighing down my shoulders, dragging up dirt as it follows along behind me." This is one of my favorite lines from the book.Even though I am divorced with no children, and am at a very different place in my life, there is a part of me that could identify with Nan. I could identify with her when she confessed, "I wanted to be able to tell Ruthie how to be popular, how to make and keep friends. But I was-- and still am-- pretty much a loner, one who wearies of almost anyone's company much too soon...Even when I got older, I'd be sitting with a bunch of college friends and suddenly have to leave...I wanted Ruthie to be different from me, to be someone who could make casual conversation without clenching her fists, who could be comfortable at a party." I think that most women can identify with Nan at some point. There's a little Nan in all of us.Last night I sat in the movie theater, reading my book while we waited for the movie to start , and reached over and whispered in my boyfriend's ear. "You know how I'm always telling you that if I don't have someone to share an experience with, it's as if it never happened? Like 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?'" He nodded. "In my book she says, 'Occasionally, one learns quiet, and then how to keep it. Even me, who has always felt that everything must be shared, in order for it to be.' See? Nan gets me." And so she does.
    • 5/5
      What is Elizabeth Berg doing writing about my life? I bought the book on a day I felt like getting a nice hotel room and "running away" for the day. I had no idea the book was about a 50 year old woman taking a little break from her own life. I loved this book, and it was so dead on regarding so many emotions and realisms of turning middle aged. Ann Tyler's ladder of years was also good, but a little depressing with the sad wardrobe and sad little room the character takes. I say if you're going to run a way for a little bit - do it in style!
    • 5/5
      Why I chose it...Love Elizabeth Berg. What I thought...Found this book to be hilarioius, laugh out loud funny...had to pass it on as soon as I was done so others could laugh with me....LOVED this book.
    • 3/5
      This was an easy read novel. The story is written totally as letters to a husband, a grown daughter, and journal entries -- all from the perspective of Nan who has turned fifty and feels she is getting old and losing herself. She gets in her car in the suburbs of Boston and just starts driving with no destination in mind. Every few days she writes to her husband or in her journal to describe what she has seen or the soul search she is going through.
    • 4/5
      Rather compelling, often humurous journal of a middle-age woman taking stock of her marriage.
    • 5/5
      This is the book that turned me into an Elizabeth Berg fan!
    • 4/5
      Since I like all my fiction, even women's fiction, to really move along, the pace of this book was occasionally a little slow for me. Beyond that, though, I liked it a lot. Nan's voice is appealing and surprising, and that's quite an accomplishment when drawing a sort of middle-aged everywoman. This has made me want to read more EB. My girlfriends all loved the journey Nan took, and the quirky stops she made along the way; I think many of us wished we could take a similar trip. And the hope she finds near the end of her journey is wonderful and believable.I found the "letters" to Martin to be effective and really revealing about their relationship.
    • 4/5
      Nan, her beautiful expensive journal and her little stone go on a journey.
    • 5/5
      Lovely book! If only we all had the time, money and imagination to do this!