Robert Gwaltney undoubtedly has one of the most stunning imaginations of any author now writing. In his award-winning debut, The Cicada Tree—which, among other honors, won the Georgia Writer of the Year Award for a First Novel—he proved he excels in lyrical prose, richly drawn characters, and confident storytelling. Now, with his second novel, Sing Down the Moon (Mercer University Press 2026), he takes his readers into a wholly new realm—a mythical barrier island off the coast of Gwaltney’s native Georgia and into the troubled lives of a generation of women strangely cursed. Southern Gothic, magical realism, grit-lit fever dream, coming-of-age, and ghost story—Sing Down the Moon is all that woven into a novel at once fanciful, graceful, yet often ferocious, and at times just plain weird. It’s both a challenge and a delight to read Sing Down the Moon.
The moody cover, with its deep blues, shadows, and full moon, sets a stage for a darkly gorgeous story that lives up to every hue and silhouette in its cover illustration. Atmospheric, filled with lush, vivid descriptions and wild plot twists, Sing Down the Moon follows sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye on her quest to escape the devastating heritage of her mother on the Georgia barrier island known as Good Hope. Right off, too, Gwaltney teases his readers with the mystery of “Tribulation Day,” and the accident that cost Leontyne the loss of her right hand and a partial loss of memory.
If the first line—“We are all dead here on Good Hope.”—does not grab you, the next paragraph, with its distinctive language, certainly should:
“The itch of these words, this chitter of memory troubles my tongue. I hurry behind Eulalee, my mama, cradling this rusted coffee can in the crook of my puny, no-hand arm, hankering to fire these words into the air like buckshot. To rip loose the past.”
Characters in Sing Down the Moon run the gamut from human to haint to other, including Forever Moon, the full moon over the island that never waxes or wanes. Among the more unique characters, Damascus, “a witch of a tree,” is a tree that produces Sarah Figs, which capture haints within their fruits, and from which the Skye women brew a drug called Redemption. In turn, this drug is sold to people on the mainland, “fools we call Sinners,” who buy and drink Redemption, “begging to ease the pain of living, drinking themselves a drop.” As Leontyne Skye observes:
“Long as there has been the Forever Moon, there has been Damascus beguiling haints across the River with her wind chime song, wooing these ghosts to the sweet-warm pulpy-womb of her Sarah Figs. And long as Sarah Figs have had their way with haints, Skye women have made and sold Redemption, have crawled off to the Doldrums to tumble apart and die when the drug-making is done running poison through their blood.”
Among the myriad characters, protagonist Leontyne Skye commands the stage with her idiosyncratic voice, her torn loyalties, and her deep yearnings, but the enigmatic Rebecca and Avery Longwood also demand their fair share of attention. Leontyne views Rebecca and Avery as “my Longwood twins. They are my friends. They would never harm me.” Whether that is true or not remains to be seen. Even Leontyne recognizes the risk in these friendships and observes that “Avery lies there appearing more angel than demon. Rebecca says Avery is selfish and a liar, and I do not disagree. Though he is not all bad, and none of us here are every bit good.”
Constance Rose Longwood, the dead mother of Rebecca and Avery, who in life was “[d]esperate for someone to be kind,” appears responsible for “Tribulation Day,” when Leontyne lost her hand and Constance and her baby lost their lives. Rebecca and Avery’s father, McKinley Longwood, casts a villainous spell with his pure hatred for Avery, along with his worrisome new bride, Miss Hushabye Byrd. Also known as the Prophetess, Miss Hushabye comes to New Hope by boat demanding more of the drug Redemption. To this end, she terrorizes Leontyne, even threatening to kill her pet marsh rabbit. Leontyne observes that Miss Hushabye’s “voice is soft and weepy, and if I did not know the reach of her whip or slice of her blow, the sound of her sadness might hook me by the gills.”
The haint Willadeene is as strong and unique a character as any person in the novel. She is “beautiful to every sort of eye.” Leontyne says of her that “there is not another one like her. She is near abouts a human creature. A womanly form with arms, legs, and bosom. Evergreen skin and flowers for hair. And she is the only specter ever to escape a Sarah Fig before it could do her in.” Willadeene herself wisely states, “I might be dead, but I know a lie when I hear one.”
Stripped of the magical realism and fantasy elements, Sing Down the Moon is about a teenager desperate to escape the dark, narrow world in which she has lived her first sixteen years. Leontyne’s desperation to escape is palpable, even as her unique situation is harrowing. Leontyne “yearn[s] to run clear of Good Hope,” and she “plot[s] how I might escape,… biding the time until I am almost to my destination.” Yet she is tethered to Good Hope by responsibility, tradition, and legacy, as well as by the difficulties of leaving. Still, to these matters, she says, “To heck and hell with that, I say. I want to live.”
She begs her friend Rebecca to run away with her, but they face the problems of no money, not knowing anything other than Good Hope—and what to do with Avery, whom they agree would not survive on Good Hope without them and yet cannot go with them. And then there’s the issue of the drug Redemption, which prompts Rebecca to ask if Leontyne knows how to make it, since that is the only source of income for Leontyne. She answers, “I am afraid so. I do know how the stuff is made. But the way is not written. It is kept right here, I say, tapping my temple with my nub.” Adding still more conflict and intrigue, the arrival of a stranger on the isolated barrier island further complicates matters and forces Leontyne into making a painful, dire choice.
Yet it is clearly not fair, in a review of Sing Down the Moon, to strip it to just this coming-of-age storyline, because the book is its magical realism, its ghosts and haints, its gothic atmosphere, and its sheer, fanciful, ferocious imaginative, otherworldly weirdness. The qualities that give Sing Down the Moon its appeal, power, and uniqueness, however, are also the elements that make it hard to review and, for some, perhaps hard to read. Yet even when readers don’t always know exactly what is going on, they will still be swept up into the sheer wonder of the novel. It’s a uniquely fascinating world Gwaltney has created, even if it is often the nightmare of a punishing fever dream instead of the sweet dream of a peaceful sleep.
Given how special and beautifully written Sing Down the Moon is, it is no doubt destined to become the critical success of its award-winning predecessor novel, The Cicada Tree. Indeed, even before publication, Sing Down the Moon was awarded first place in the Somerset Award for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.
Robert Gwaltney
Robert Gwaltney grew up in Southwest Georgia, graduated from Florida State University, and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Learn more about him and his books at https://robertlgwaltney.com/
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