Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Time Warner Audio
Release Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58621-739-9
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Unabridged [6 hours/5 CDs]
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Genre: Fiction 
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Carisa Weeaks
Reviewer Notes:  
Copyright MyShelf.com

Shoot the Moon 
By Billie Letts
Read by Lou Diamond Phillips

     In 1972, DeClare, Oklahoma felt the shock of murder that would forever change their lives. A young woman named Gaylene Harjo is murdered in her trailer, and her baby, Nicky Jack, disappears. After the deputies do everything in their power to close the case, no matter what the cost, the town keeps the secret of the young woman’s past and death in their skeleton closet along with all the rest. They had no idea that 30 years later Nicky Jack himself would come waltzing back into their lives in order to piece together exactly what happened the night his mother was taken from him.

   Mark Albright is a wealthy vet to the stars in his lush Beverly Hills practice. He’s always had an easy life and planned it to be that way. The kind of man that fills his daily calendar out a year in advance, Mark is blind-sided by the discovery of an attorney’s letter of adoption and a birth certificate stating that his real name is Nick Harjo. Shocked, Mark sets out to figure out why his real mother would give him up to a wealthy couple for adoption in exchange for twenty-thousand dollars. Only instead of finding her, he finds that her memory and life is buried deep in a cavern of deceit and lies darker than the Carlsbad Caverns. Struggling with the tumultuous turn of his normal life into one that puts all soap operas to shame, Mark/Nick struggles with the reality that nothing is ever as it seems and that fate has her way of always bringing everything that happens in the dark to light somehow, no matter how hard the guilty fight to stop it.

   Ever since I watched “Where the Heart is,” I’ve become a bigger and bigger fan of Letts and her candid view of real small town life. I applaud her bold ability to bring out the truly dark and slimy nature of small-town politics as well as the heartfelt, closeness of those who care about others more than they do about themselves. Mark/Nick and Ivy are the strongest characters I’ve ever seen in a story about Oklahoma and they personify the realities of living there in this day and age. I love Ivy’s free-spirited wit and humor about the town she and her mother Teev call home, and Mark/Nick’s struggle with whose life he’s really meant to lead; Mark’s suburban vet life or Nick’s small-town freedom fighter’s life is truly a clash of the Titans. It’s an awesome read and I recommend this to anyone who enjoys the dramatics that is small-town wonderment as well as a story of love, loss, and rediscovery.

  Lou Diamond Phillips was the perfect pick for the voice of this story. His deep, smooth voice and ability to change characters with the ease of wind-changing direction creates a three-dimensional world for the listener and helps pull them into a story of unparalleled proportions. His resumé includes Courage Under Fire and Stand and Deliver. He’s also directed and starred in episodes of “The Twilight Zone” and has a guest starring spot opposite Kiefer Sutherland in the TV show “24.”