Vanishing Moon（ISBN=9780156030182）

　　The Tollman children--spitfire Phil, the eldest; musing Stephen, his shadow; charming but doomed Margie; and stuttering Myron--adore their lovely, competent mother and cannot forgive their lackluster father for allowing her to go blind. So destitute are they at the worst of the Great Depression that they end up living in a tent outside Cleveland's city limits, where life is as brutal and sporadically transcendent as the moody Midwest's meteorologic extremes. Assured and purposeful, first-time novelist Coulson infuses each surprising and evocative moment with great feeling and mythic resonance as he leapfrogs forward in time, subtly tracing the impact of the Second World War, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War on his emotionally damaged characters. Shifting between Cleveland and Detroit, and among several points of view, including that of Katherine, a brilliant pianist with whom both Phil and Stephen fall madly in love, Coulson writes with surpassing clarity and dignity about grief, anger, sexual passion, the need for art, brotherly love, and the resilience of good women, creating a somberly beautiful family saga. --(Booklist - Donna Seaman )"Vanishing"...will remind readers of Steinbeck and Zola, or...such contemporary masters...as Raymond Carver and Russell Banks. - December 7, 2003--(The Buffalo News - R.D. Pohl )A haunting, powerful, lyrical debut about a family fallen upon hard times and heart-rendering interactions...Five stars for this one. -- Martin Shepard, Publisher (The Permanent Press )

　　A chorus of candid and poignant voices narrates this novel about a working-class American family who struggles to succeed through five turbulent decades, from the Depression to the Vietnam War. First, Stephen Tollman looks back on his early adventures with his older brother, Philip, as the boys try to shield their younger siblings from the vulnerability of financial ruin. Years later, the vibrant and ambitious Katherine Lennox mesmerizes Stephen and Philip as they both tragically fall in love with her. Then, Philip's son James comes of age in the 1960s, striving to understand his father's deep anger amid a summer of assassinations and civil unrest. Together, these voices create an insightful, beautiful, and deeply psychological story about the American working class, about the strength and strain of family bonds, and finally, about hardships that haunt the human psyche over a lifetime.

　　Joseph Coulson is the author of three books of poetry and a full-length play, and has been the recipient of a Gray Writing Fellowship and the Tompkins Award in Poetry. The Vanishing Moon is his first novel. Coulson lives in the San Francisco Bay area.