Gateway to the Moon: A Novel

Gateway to the Moon: A Novel
Mary Morris
Anchor (April 10, 2018), 345 pages
Kindle edition $11.99, Amazon paperback $12.99
purchased during a BookBub sale for $2.99

I was looking for my next book to read when I saw Gateway to the Moon discounted to $2.99 in a BookBub email. It looked like intriguing reading so I snatched it up.

The primary character in the story is a teenager named Miguel who loves astronomy and looking at the stars. He has even made his own telescope. However, he is restless and bored in his tiny New Mexico village. He takes a job as a sitter for a well-off woman, the wife of a surgeon, taking care of her two boys.

Miguel identifies as Latino and was raised as such. He doesn’t know that his ancestry is Jewish. His story is interwoven with the story of several generations of Spanish Jews beginning in 1492. Yes, one of them sailed out with Columbus. These were people who nominally converted to Christianity during times of persecution, but who secretly kept their Jewish identity. The book portrays them both in Spain and in the New World, always pursued by their Christian persecutors.

That part of the novel was often hard to read, but the narrative of Miguel, his mother, his father (separated from his mother, but always there for him), his employer, and the man who ran the general store in town made for good reading. With an interesting twist at the end (that one might have seen coming), Gateway to the Moon offers an entertaining family drama.

The feeling of the book stayed with me for some days after I finished it. I suppose that’s a sign of a well-written novel.