TACOMA, Wash. – Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye (Southern Methodist University Press), a memoir by Ann Putnam, traces the final years of her father and mother, and her father’s identical twin brother, as they navigate their way through the bewildering maze of the health system. The book witnesses their courage and their stumblings as they make their way into old age and death. The memoir has won acclaim for vividly portraying a time that inevitably comes to every family.
Putnam, an English instructor at University of Puget Sound, explains in the book preface that this is not only the story of three family members, but “the story of the journey from one twin’s death to the other, of what happened along the way, of what it means to lose the other who is also oneself.”
Full Moon at Noontide was reviewed in The Seattle Times, The Oregonian, The News Tribune, and elsewhere. Putnam was also invited to appear on public radio’s KUOW Presents. The widely syndicated book critic, Barbara Lloyd McMichael, described the work as a “beautifully-written observation of old age, infirmity and death—of loss upon loss” that captures not only the pain and regret, but the grace and even the comedy of their last years. Charles Johnson, winner of the National Book Award, wrote, “Ann Putnam’s luminous prose transforms pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.” Lee Martin, author or River of Heaven, wrote, “this is a hard book… But it’s a gorgeous book, too, one born from the endurance of the human spirit and the capacity to love.”
Putnam is an essayist, teacher, and novelist. She has published short fiction, personal essays, literary criticism, and book reviews in various anthologies such as Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice and in journals including the Hemingway Review, Western American Literature, and the South Dakota Review. At University of Puget Sound, Putnam teaches creative writing and gender studies.
Press-quality photos of Ann Putnam and the book cover are available on request.
Tweet this: Ann Putnam’s new book, Full Moon at Noontide, covered on KUOW, in The Seattle Times. Beautifully-written, says Bookmonger.
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