High praise for a book that richly examines the end of life and the experience of those who share it
TACOMA, Wash. – Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye (University of Iowa Press, March 2015), a memoir by Ann Putnam, traces the final years of her father and mother, and her father’s twin brother, as they navigate their way through the bewildering maze of the health system. The book witnesses their courage and their halting steps as they move through old age and death—and examines the heart of the daughter who lives through it with them.
Putnam, an author and English instructor at the University of Puget Sound, explains 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 is also the story of how the writer herself struggled to save the three and could not, and how she dealt with the weight of guilt, of worrying that she had not done enough, said enough, stayed long enough for them all. The journey was one that, in the end, carried a lesson, which Putnam shares with beauty, sadness, and candor.
Originally published in hardback by Southern Methodist University Press in 2009, the book has been reviewed favorably in The Seattle Times, The Oregonian, The News Tribune, and elsewhere. Putnam also was invited to appear on KUOW public radio.
In a recent review, Timothy Bazzett, author of the memoir Booklover: A One-Year Journal of Reading, Reflecting & Remembering, wrote: “Ann Putnam’s memoir of the slow decline and final years of her parents and her bachelor uncle should become a classic text on love, loss, and grief. There have been countless books on this subject, I know, but her story seems unique. This book will be a tremendous comfort for people who continue to feel the grief of losing a loved one. I know it was for me.”
The Pacific Northwest 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 one’s last years. Charles Johnson, the 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, the author of 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 South Dakota Review. She also published three short stories in the collection Nine by Three: Stories. At the University of Puget Sound, Putnam teaches creative writing, gender studies, and seminars on scholarly inquiry and Ernest Hemingway.
Press-quality photos of Ann Putnam and the book cover are available on request.
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