This review is very different from the others both in nature and in content. I’ve read this book before, and also it’s turned from book review into this month’s reflection post (so y’all get a two-for-one deal out of this.) Even though this isn’t a typical book review, I hope you find it useful in your quest for more stories to read, because this is a good one.
The Whole of the Moon was–in all honesty a terrific book–written by my high school English teacher, Brian Rogers. I read it once before, in the fall of 2017 right when it came out. I was in the midst of college, still trying to prove to myself that I was good enough to go to med school (I was, but I wouldn’t figure out that I didn’t want to go until a year later), and I ended up skimming through it more than actually reading it. I went to college in the same town I attended high school, and in the back of my mind I knew I would get to reading The Whole of the Moon properly when I had more time, and when I could fully dedicate myself to it. I wanted to go back to my high school armed with questions for the author, because I knew Mr. Rogers would at least humor me and maybe even enjoy being asked about the motivations behind his work.
But when there is time, motivation wanes, and when there’s motivation there never seems to be enough time. And so the book remained on the shelf, traveling with me from college in the Inland Empire to my first apartment in L.A. to my second on the edge of downtown. And last February, sometime after Valentine’s Day, I felt compelled to pick it up and read the first few pages. I was already deep into my February read so I decided I’d really read it next month, because at that point I’d realized I will never find time for anything anymore. I had to make my own time.
The next week, I found out that Mr. Rogers had passed away after a year of battling cancer. I knew he had been diagnosed the year before, and you would think that that would have spurned me to read his book then. But the world was ending, the country was going into pandemic lockdown that same week, and I had just turned 23. The thought of reaching out then had crossed my mind, but he must’ve been getting so many calls already, and wouldn’t he rather spend time with his family? I didn’t need to take up that space.
So I didn’t call. I didn’t read. And now I’ve done the latter knowing I wouldn’t be able to do the former. So I share this with you.
The Whole of the Moon follows six stories throughout Los Angeles and the hills that extend out into the Inland Empire: an actor in present day Los Angeles waiting for a callback from his agent, two kids who ditched school in 1964 and go for a hike in the woods that turns dangerous, a woman named Dot reminiscing on her husband who spent years working on a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby, a young woman Felicity who deals with the consequences of an unexpected pregnancy, Mike, a former high school star, who attends an open tryout for the Angels baseball team, and a boarding school teacher recalling the story of his cousin, a social climber who has disappeared in the wake of a murder. Each of these characters are connected by one thing: they all checked out the same copy of The Great Gatsby from the public library.
You read a lot of stories about L.A., about the glitz and glamour, the hustle, and the successes. And when you’re in L.A., it’s hard to see beyond it, beyond the dream that you’re so desperately trying to reach. This book is about the life outside of that. The stories that don’t get told because they don’t look like success. It shows the reality of L.A. and what this city can do to you, the desperation it injects into your bones. And whether or not Mr. Rogers intended it, I think it shows you hope. That there’s life and happiness outside of the dream, that it’s okay you didn’t reach it even though you still want it, even though you still dream about it.
I saw a lot of Mr. Rogers in this book. The characters’ grit, their passions, their determination. And I also saw the resignation, the acceptance, and contentment that this is where we’re at in our lives, and it’s not what we expected, but it’s not a bad life.
I saw that in the way that he taught us. He’s the reason why I have a mild to moderate obsession with Hamlet‘s Ophelia. He’s the reason I can’t get through the first few pages of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia without remembering the class where – like Septimus – he had to explain ‘carnal embrace’ to a class of seventeen-year-olds. And perhaps my most famous moment, he’s the reason why I got to drop an f-bomb in class while prospective students were touring (it was in the script!)
I also saw a lot of myself in the stories, in the characters’ desperation and anxiety about whether they’d make it, whether they were good enough, and whether they actually mattered enough to make it, whether they were important. Wanting to be a writer, pursuing entertainment, and constantly questioning whether anything I write will ever be good enough, will ever be the thing that gets someone’s attention, I saw myself reflected back at me in this book. And maybe that was also Mr. Rogers at one point.
You never think of your teachers having a life outside of the classroom, and even at a boarding school like Webb, where some of our teachers literally lived on campus, it was still difficult to imagine them all as complex human beings. I have so many questions for that complex human being, the one who wrote this book and the one who taught me to have confidence in my writing, and I have a feeling he’ll be answering them as I go along my own journey.
From my first publication, to my first production, he’s been an influencing force and I have no doubt he will continue to do so.
So thank you Mr. Rogers, from the Whole of the Moon and back again.
-RP
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For more information on The Whole of the Moon, visit http://www.brianerogers.com/
You can buy a copy of The Whole of the Moon below:
Amazon
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Or ask your local library if they have it (if not, ask them to order it! It helps support your local library and your favorite book authors!)
Rena Patel 