How We Saw the Moon

It's the anniversary of Annie Simon's teenaged son, Jordan's departure to points unknown and she's struggling to find balance. She joins the Clinton campaign to feel useful and is shattered at Trump's victory and the ongoing unraveling of the world around her-the fascist attacks, the loss of balance in her friends and families and writing students who come to her to resolve the endings to their own stories to no avail. Annie meets an older man who she connects with only to find him volatile and unsteady, and finally, dead, at a snowy Vermont writing retreat. Ushering David over from life to death becomes a metaphor for what many in her world deal with during the volatile period between Trump's election and the advent of Covid. Her son, Jordan, finally resurfaces after political trouble in Japan and a year in prison. Annie and Jordan meet again, manage to reach each other briefly in a meeting in an airport lounge, but they ultimately turn away to finish their own journeys, too far apart to offer anything but a witnessing of each other's life.