Ron Butlin's Ghostmoon

Everything that she has struggled so hard to subdue is painfully revealed in the fragmented pieces of recollections and associations when she is staying at a nursing home. The stigma of an unmarried mother still haunts her. Ron Butlin's portrayal of a dissociated mind is the biggest achievement in this novel. The author uses second-person locution and the present tense throughout this part of the narrative. Thus, it becomes much more immediate and direct. The story is recounted from both Tom's and Maggie's point of view.

In the structure of the novel the two narratives are deeply interconnected and seem to mirror each other. Thus, the mother's struggle to keep her son and save him from adoption is distantly echoed by the son's struggle to be recognized by his mother and to understand her rambled speech, to be close to her. There is also the nursing home where Maggie stays the last months of her life and the children's home where Tom has to stay the first months of his life with their smells, rigid daily routine and cold. There are Sunday visits that are a challenge and joy for both Tom and his mother. Some details are painstakingly picked out and placed in the narratives to form a big jigsaw puzzle where past and present are finally brought together before the eyes of the reader. Some names haunt old Maggie's mind and it turns out that these are the names of some people from her past (Boss Beryl, Donna, Mrs Saunders whom she met at the children's home). Toms brings some photographs and their stories are gradually revealed by the author. Old Maggie also rambles about a cake and a letter, the truth about them is presented later in the novel. Unlike the reader, Tom struggles hard to make sense of Maggie's disjointed words and confusing gestures, tries to connect to his mother's past and fails. He is only allowed brief fleeting glimpses into what his mother has been through, Maggie's past is never assembled into a clearer, truer picture for him:

She's like a book whose pages have fallen out of sequence - but who's going to put them back into their right order? There's no other copy to refer to [Butlin 2014: 231].

The novel is also full of vivid symbolism. Maggie rips out the pendulum of her parents' grandfather clock and throws it into the waters of Newhaven Harbour. The pendulum sinking deeper 'into the harbour's muddy ooze' (Butlin 2014: 60) is the symbol of Maggie's decision to turn a new leaf, to show her courage and determination in an endless struggle against prejudice, a struggle for her own future and her right to be happy. The title of the novel refers to the phenomenon of a daytime moon. Maggie notices 'a faint and almost transparent smudge against the ice-blue sky' (Butlin 2014: 171) and calls it 'a ghost moon'. The daytime moon becomes the symbol of a fleeting hope for Maggie and her son Tom to be together and be happy:

.she could see the moon directly ahead of them, set high above the roof of a large townhouse. Against the clear-cut outline of bricks and chimneys it looked like an unfinished sketch, a hastily drawn scribble of light that might dissolve at any moment. Faster and faster towards it they went, her feet no longer touching the pavement [Butlin 2014: 171-172]

In this episode the author even shifts to the use of present tense to show the heightened power of this moment and intensity of the mother's feelings: 'Maggie raises her head to shout out loud: 'Ghost moon here we come!' [Butlin 2014: 175]. She never gives up her hope and works hard to achieve it.

As a Scottish writer and a citizen of Edinburgh Ron Butlin cannot but write about Scotland and his native city to form the background of Maggie Davies' life story. The novel is full of expansive seascapes of the Outer Hebrides with their sky 'so vast, so generous and light filled.' [Butlin 2014: 12)] and bright light - 'the dazzling sheen of sunlight caught by the sea.' [Butlin 2014: 1]). The novel contrasts empty windswept landscapes of the Isle of Lewis with its 'flat moorland, utterly treeless...' [Butlin 2014: 15] to peace and tranquility of the countryside in the Borders though it is deeply covered in snow: 'a complete white out of fields, woods and sky as far as you can see.'[(Butlin 2014: 7], 'a blue-skied, snow silenced winter's day...' [Butlin 2014: 235]. Butlin describes Edinburgh as a cheerful busy city, its streets, parks, department stores crowded with people. Hooting trains enter or leave Waverley station, trams rumble up and down the streets. This bustle is contrasted to Maggie's loneliness and dejection and before her very eyes the city turns into a bleak place full of dirty chimney smoke, grime and rain. All her suffering, humiliation and shame gradually transform into a powerful image full of compassion and sympathy:

Across the road stood the Royal Scottish Academy looking more than ever like a Greek temple that had been left too long out in the Scottish rain. Over the years, layer upon layer of soot from the nearby trains and the city chimneys had drifted onto its pillars and walls, to turn into black mould. The grime was so ingrained that the stonework looked like it was being eaten away from the inside. The nearby Scott Monument looked just as dingy. If she herself stood in Princes Street long enough. would that black, tarry grit settle on her and turn her into a statue? A memorial to the Unmarried Mother, with her swollen belly for everyone to see? [Butlin 2014: 111-112].

Ghost Moon is thought-provoking; it tackles many difficult and disturbing problems. The novel is about selfless love, its power and great beauty. It depicts the mother and son's relationship, a strong bond that should be intimate and mutually satisfying. It makes us think about our parents and grandparents who can give us a sense of our place in history, a sense of belonging to our families, about memory and family memories. It is about estrangement and distancing of generations, when we realize that pressure of time that we experience in our everyday life should not maintain that distance. Ron Butlin's humane tone and caring attitude to his main character, Maggie Davies, make this book extremely moving and powerful.