Moon and the Mars

“Ms. Corthron’s humility and curiosity match her outsize intellect and ambition. … Theo is the lone narrator in Moon and the Mars, but her voice is so rich with the locutions and grammatical tics of her joint heritage that it sounds almost choral.”
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“Kia Corthron has a knack for seeing what we cannot, for laying bare the truths we refuse to see. Moon and the Mars, her latest masterpiece, is an absorbing story of family and community, of Africans and Irish, of settler and native, of slavery and abolition, of a city and a nation wracked by Civil War and racist violence, of love won and lost. Unsettling the victim-perpetrator binary, she writes instead of people caught in the whirlwind of history, violence, politics, ideology, love, and desire; people navigating the actual world where race lines are drawn in shifting sands in blood and glue, elusive yet enduring, smelling of death and flowers. Corthron once again reminds us that nothing is black and white.” 
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

“A searing, far-flung epic, a truly American tale, centered on one girl of African-American and Irish heritage, as she makes her way into a world rife with brutality, change and war. Kia Corthron is one of our finest novelists, constantly unveiling the truth and the way histories have been hidden from us, revealing people in all their glory and imperfection. This isn’t just a novel. It is a history, a monument to hope.”
—Rene Denfeld, author of The Enchanted and The Child Finder

“Rarely does one encounter a book that can so profoundly change a reader. Moon and the Mars is that book. Corthron, a true heir to James Baldwin, presents a startlingly original exposure of the complex roots of American racism and classism as well as a sweeping exploration of love in all its myriad forms. The best work of fiction I have read in many years.”
—Naomi Wallace, MacArthur “Genius” Playwriting Fellow and author of One Flea Spare

“Kia Corthron is a singular crucial creative artist with enormous vitality, re-imagining the real life of New York City rooted in new histories.”
—Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show

“Playwright and novelist Corthron (The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter) combines a propulsive coming-of-age story with a fascinating history of the years before and after the Civil War… Corthron smoothly weaves in historical developments as divisions flare in the Five Points, such as the implications of the Dred Scott case, something Grammy Brook sums up concisely: “Whenever the rich make a crisis, you know what gonna fall to the poor is catastrophe.” Corthron’s ambition pays off with dividends.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Kia Corthron, writing with insight, empathy and an acute sense of history, has reached into the divided heart of nineteenth century New York and produced a story of exceptional power. Through the eyes of Theodora Brigid Brook, a young woman of Irish and African ancestry, we encounter a city of vibrant streets, tangled loyalties, and the best and worst possibilities.” 
—Robert W. Snyder, Manhattan Borough Historian and coauthor of All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York

“In the native language of the colonized Irish Gael, the proverb Ar scáth a chéile a mahireann na daoine tells us it’s in the shelter of each other that the people survive. In Moon and the Mars, Kia Corthron has channeled the Seanchaí and the Griot, using beautifully rendered, gripping storytelling to resurrect histories too often disappeared. You will fall in love with Theo, a Black and Irish child who embodies her histories, as she takes you by the hand, guiding you through a mid-19th Century Manhattan landscape of community, solidarity, class manipulations, and racist violence. And you’ll tear through these streets and pages of joy and heartbreak full tilt, emerging with a renewed call to solidarity—for all our survival.”
—Michael Patrick MacDonald, bestselling author of All Souls: A Family Story from Southie and Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion

“Corthron’s new historical epic spins an absorbing and linguistically nimble tale that proves she’s one of our most dynamic and risk-taking writers.”
—Chicago Review of Books

“In her absorbing and original second novel, Kia Corthron examines racism, family and identity through the eyes of Theo, a young biracial orphan growing up in mid-19th century New York City. You won’t soon forget this one.”
—Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine


“As the story progresses, our protagonist evolves from child to teenager. As she does so, the world around her changes, and so too does her understanding of this world and her position within it. [] Corthron, a critically acclaimed playwright, effectively draws from this experience bolstering the story with song, props—letters, news bulletins—and spirited dialogue, to make the novel intimate and immediate.” —Brigid O’Dea, The Irish Times