If you’re going to write a novel, why not do as the title of Isa Arsén’s debut suggests? “Shoot the Moon” refers to the actual act of getting astronauts to the lunar surface, but this work of fiction also attempts to shoot the moon like a fearless player in a Hearts card game — thematically, there’s bisexuality, loss, Daddy issues, and a unique wormhole that allows for some very specific time travel.
The bulk of the novel takes place in the late 1960s, as NASA is indeed trying to beat the Soviets to the moon. Annie Fisk is the lead character, a recent physics graduate whose father played a role developing the atomic bomb before dying young. By page five Annie is in love with an Apollo 11 astronaut named Norm she meets at a NASA Christmas party. And by page seven we’ve gone backwards 18 years and 8-year-old Annie is meeting a like-aged stranger named Diana in the back garden of her childhood home in New Mexico.
