The Moon In Deep Winter-Lee Polevoi

The Moon In Deep Winter
Lee Polevoi
Casagrande Press, November 4 2008, $23.95
ISBN: 0976951657

After an illegal scheme overseas Parker Sloane leaves Southern California where he has lived for years, as a two-bit criminal, to return to his New England small-town home. Although part of his reason for going to the back woods is to elude those wanting to kill him, he hopes to reconcile with his family members especially with his mom and younger siblings; although he does not expect the same with his martinet stepfather, but Parker would not mind a ceasefire understanding with him.

However, Parker begins to believe you can go home as nothing has changed except in the sense of worsening. His stepfather is even more a dictator than before; his brother resents him; his half sister is a siren tempting him; and his mom has become a born again evangelical. He now wonders if he was better off facing professional hit men than his family even as he feels an urgent need to help each of them and keep them together.

This is a fascinating family drama as each of the key five players look outward at each other with either anger and resentment or lothing and disappointment. When they look introspectively at themselves they see survival supersedes everything. With a nod towards Maslow’s Hierarchy, Lee Polevoi provides a profound glimpse at the individual members of a dysfunctional family in which the sum is much less than the parts as each of their personal needs supersede all else even their inner principles.

Harriet Klausner