Stephen Wright's Black Moon is a wild romp of an adventure, lush with blood and debauchery, starring a spectacularly colorful character based on the historical figure of Anne Bonny. Readers will need a strong constitution for the violence and rape that populate these pages, but the heroine and her associates offer plenty of humor, thoughtful philosophy, and transcendence to balance the scales.
Not much is known about Anne Bonny, an Irishwoman turned pirate in the early 1700s. With this inspiration, Wright (Meditations in Green) invents Amethyst "Meeks" Connell. From early trauma to an orphanage, then a "sewing shop for recalcitrant maids" and a youthful marriage into the minor gentry, Meeks continually reaches to improve her circumstances. Her devoted husband, Georgie, lusts after the latest round of developing war between the major European powers and secures himself a commission, and Meeks accompanies him. Within minutes of reaching the battlefield, Meeks makes her first kill and is widowed.
Wright's swashbuckling, stylish narrative unfolds perfectly naturally as Meeks lives as a soldier and a man; marries a woman and is widowed again; and, on the lam, sets sail for Ireland and home. When her ship is boarded by pirates, she joins them. It is at this point that Meeks's real adventures--and the shining love(s) of her life--begin.
The pirate life is for "those who can work like miners, fight like demons, and revel like tosspots," and Meeks keeps up with the best of them. "There remains, of course, the lingering issue of love." Black Moon, however bloodthirsty, is also a romantic novel: spirited, atmospheric, raging, and joyful unto its unforgettable end. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia