Editorial Content for To the Moon and Back
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Is it fair to say that astronauts are having a moment in novels this year? First, Samantha Harvey's ORBITAL won the Booker Prize. Then, over the summer, Taylor Jenkins Reid profiled the first female NASA recruits in ATMOSPHERE. Now, Eliana Ramage sets her sights on the sky in her debut, TO THE MOON AND BACK.
The book follows Steph Harper from her 1980s childhood to the near future. When Steph and her younger sister, Kayla, were children, their mother, Hannah, fled an abusive relationship, taking them from Texas to Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee tribe in Oklahoma. Hannah ensures that her daughters are steeped in Cherokee heritage, culture and language, even when Steph bristles against these aspects of her identity.
"If Eliana Ramage is writing fiction this accomplished right out of the gate, I can't wait to see where she goes next. The sky's the limit!"
Steph, who from an early age has harbored a fierce desire to become not only a scientist but also an astronaut, feels throughout her youth that her mother is trying to sabotage her goals. When Steph desperately wants to attend Space Camp in Alabama, for example, Hannah instead launches "Space Culture Camp" in Tahlequah, an awkward mashup of astronomy and Cherokee traditions that leaves Steph more embarrassed than inspired. Kayla, on the other hand, wholeheartedly embraces her Cherokee identity, especially as the two mature into adulthood. She becomes an early social media influencer at the forefront of creating content around Native struggles for environmental justice and autonomy.
Although Steph's early aspirations for an Ivy League education fall by the wayside, she nevertheless attends “almost” an Ivy, the fictional Hollis College in Connecticut, where she meets another young woman with a complicated relationship to her Native identity. Della has been raised by a white Mormon family after being at the center of a forced adoption case under the Indian Child Welfare Act. Their complicated relationship is the first of several situations where Steph feels forced to sacrifice personal happiness and meaningful relationships, figuring they will impede her all-consuming professional goals.
You'll have to read the book to find out if Steph achieves her goals, but suffice it to say the journey is not a straight-line trajectory, nor is it without its complications. The novel unfolds primarily through Steph's first-person narrative, but as the story progresses, Della and Kayla offer glimpses into their own points of view. Other sections proceed through text messages, social media posts, press releases, and other documentary forms of storytelling.
TO THE MOON AND BACK is both expansive --- dramatic, immersive scenes take place at the bottom of the ocean and on the side of a volcano --- and intimate, as readers come to really understand Steph and cheer for her hard-won maturity and sense of balance. The book is also funny at times and always surprising. Near the end of the novel, Steph learns some key information about her mother that causes her to view her life in a whole new light. If Eliana Ramage is writing fiction this accomplished right out of the gate, I can't wait to see where she goes next. The sky's the limit!
Teaser
Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband --- with Steph and her younger sister in tow --- to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon. Spanning three decades and several continents, TO THE MOON AND BACK encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her.
Promo
Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband --- with Steph and her younger sister in tow --- to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon. Spanning three decades and several continents, TO THE MOON AND BACK encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her.
About the Book
One young woman’s relentless quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut will irrevocably alter the fates of the people she loves most in this tour de force of a debut about ambition, belonging and family.
My mother took my sister and me, and she drove through the night to a place she felt a claim to, a place on earth she thought we might be safe. I stopped asking questions. I picked little glass pieces from my sister’s hair. I watched the moon.
Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband --- with Steph and her younger sister in tow --- to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.
Spanning three decades and several continents, TO THE MOON AND BACK encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her: her sister, Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend, Della, Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.
In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, TO THE MOON AND BACK is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself.
Audiobook available; read by Nathalie Standingcloud, Kamali Minter and Tanis Parenteau
