Catch the Moon, Mary is more than a love story. It’s a story about the nature of love … and of sacrifice and perseverance. Young Mary is a gifted musician, living with an abusive father, when her music attracts the attention of a fallen angel, Gabriel. A deal is struck. He will protect her from her father, if she gives over her rights to her music. It is through the music he may redeem himself and re-enter heaven. This work of magical realism is parable-like; musical in its rhythm and glorious in its language. It requires one to slow down, take snippets and sample them before moving on again.
Waters treats us to a moody, narcissistic angel, who is prepared to kill in order to keep Mary to their agreement, and a child who grows, transforms and questions the angel’s intentions. The plot swirls, moves on and circles back to pick up the threads again. It is most cleverly done. It suspends the reader above before bringing them down to earth again, but in an ironic twist, it is Mary’s music which enraptures and the actions of the angel which bring us low. If it is Waters’ intention to expand our understanding of the dichotomy of good and evil, then she certainly achieves this.
‘Gabriel sinned until sinning became second nature and now he was burdened with the consequence: guilt that glued his summoned flesh to his soul.’
Not only is this beautiful language, it’s not wasteful. Waters says exactly what she means here. Gabriel, having lain with many human women, is suffering a crisis of guilt which has endured for hundreds of years and he is unable to gain absolution. He is stuck between two worlds and tearing himself apart.
Setting themes aside, it is Waters’ ability to set the mood which centres this book squarely in the magical realism genre. Her settings in Sydney, in Florence, and even at the bottom of the sea, anchor her work.
‘The moon, still riding high, silvered the wind-bellied sails of the city’s famous opera house and make a tin-foil crumple of the harbour.’
‘Rain, rain and more rain. The pavements were awash, rivulets corrugated garden beds, the inlet was a lumpy grey mass undifferentiated from the sky, and the windows wept.’
The world goes on with its day-to-day while, for those who can see it, remarkable events occur. And we, the readers, are amongst those chosen few.
Thank you so much!!!!
Fabulous in depth review and I am forever grateful to you for the day we spent at the Polish Gallery where you discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the first draft of Catch the Moon, Mary and gave me the key to unlock the emotional treasure chest when you advised me to “get into Gabriel’s head and watch your story will come to life”. Grateful and privileged to have met you!