review
‘Sun and Moon’ is a literary firework, bursting with anarchic humour and outrageous ideas, and will delight fans of Angela Carter. Chris Kraus’s novel follows two women over two decades, charting their friendship, rivalry, separations and reconciliation.
Sonja, whose father’s nickname for her is ‘Sonne’ (‘Sun’) and Jana von Mond (‘Moon’) become inseparable at primary school. As teenagers and into their early twenties they shun convention and set up a political cabaret. Sonne becomes the manager, while Jana develops her acting talent and gains a certain notoriety for her wit and stage presence.
Just as the small group of actors seems on the brink of gaining wider success, Jana is offered her own TV show with a commercial station. Without telling her colleagues, she accepts and disappears, leaving Sonne and the others in the lurch. Recovering from this major let-down, Sonne changes career, becoming an intern in a funeral parlour, and has a child. She goes on to start her own alternative funeral operation with Samuel, an old friend from the acting troupe.
Years later, when Jana has become a well-known celebrity and Sonne’s funeral parlour is a successful business, Jana reappears in Sonne’s life. She is sick of success and longs to reunite with Sonne, her former friend being her only connection to her near normal past. There is a kind of magnetism between the two women, who have a deeply connection from the period when they worked and lived together, but have been hurt by successive let-downs and disappointments. The plot follows the women’s friendship through further ups and downs resulting from their wildly different characters: while Sonne is rational and lives according to her own set of rules and sense of logic, Jana is anarchic, emotional, and uninhibited.
The final clash between the women occurs after Sonne, who has quietly been in love with Samuel (who also turns out to be her son’s father), discovers that Jana and Samuel are lovers. She secretly photographs the couple and the next time the two women argue, she publishes the photos online, with devastating consequences for everybody involved.
‘Sun and Moon’ is a gorgeously written novel, full of extraordinary imagery, and makes for highly rewarding reading.
Find out more: https://www.diogenes.ch/foreign-rights/titles.html?detail=559e12f1-db88-4488-aedc-47d1f46cf35b
All recommendations from Autumn 2025