Finding the Moon in Sugar

Gint Aras
Infinity Publishing (2009)
ISBN 9780741450937
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (3/09) 


Self-published books tend to be sloppy and self-indulgent affairs. Most of them fall into the category of “I am a man, so I need to write a book before I die” category, and very seldom have I found an exception to that rule. Even when the story is not lousy, the writing tends to be; and I have to admit my expectations for self-published books run quite low. Luckily, there are some exceptions – and “Finding the Moon in Sugar” by Gint Aras is definitely one of those.

The story of Andy “Nate” Nowak, a perennial loser kid from Berwick, IL, takes the unsuspecting reader on a wild, whirlwind ride through drug dealing, drug taking, brief period of homelessness, an affair with a mentally incredibly unstable woman, absinthe-drinking buddies, opera-singing lovelies and more, and it moves seamlessly from the bland Berwyn, IL to the hard-to-believe, yet very real world of Vilnius, Lithuania – and then back again to the good old USA, to Bloomington, Indiana. While the main character, Andy, is incredibly well fleshed out, some of the other characters, particularly Andy’s close family, remain a bit more of a mystery and at times I wished for more understanding of their motivation. Andy himself is a young man who seems to be stuck on making the wrong decisions, and in many cases, simply drifting with the flow and not making a decision at all. While at first I found it really hard to connect with that – and with Andy’s drug and alcohol permeated world in general – I have to admit that Andy really grew on me, and by the last third of the book I was holding my breath, hoping for a happy ending for him. The climax, which is rather shocking and most unexpected, is not the ending of the book; actually, I do not think the book has a real ending. If this means that there is a sequel coming, I’ll be delighted.

What sets this book truly apart is the sheer brilliance of writing and an unbelievable, almost eerie knack for language. What the author manages to convey about the characters by his choice of words that they are using is simply amazing – from the cadence of sentences in mixed Lithuanian or Russian to the word choices an undereducated young American uses (The United Soviet Society Republic or maybe Checkoslavakia, anybody??? Or if those two escape you, try making love with a preservative…), Aras’ language delighted me on every page. I was laughing, I was chuckling and now and then I had to stop reading to wipe away some tears. Not all of those were from laughing so hard either… In spite of being wonderfully narrow in many ways. Andy will astonish you with some deep truths, among which my favorite is probably his realization of a difference between a girlfriend and a wife. No, I will not quote it here – this is just another very good reason to go and treat your self by buying “Finding the Moon in Sugar.”  Another utterly brilliant part is the one where Andy, freshly back to the USA, looks at his homeland anew and sees it so differently. Eye-opening, to say the least…

Do not get scared away by occasional crude language and some rather graphic scenes; “Finding the Moon in Sugar” by Gint Aras is an amazing, refreshing and utterly brilliant book.

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