Falling From The Moon

~ ~ A Novel by Karin Zirk

The true star of this book is the canvas upon which the story is drawn. Author Karin Zirk draws upon decades of participant observation to create a virtual Rainbow Gathering for Sapphire’s adventure. Exhibiting the keen eye of an ethnographer, Zirk’s writing conjures a world, brutally honest and rich with detail, allowing readers to travel through time and space not to any specific place, but to a temporary utopian moment. Though she never names it in the body of her work, she has created with her fiction one of the most immersive descriptions written of a Rainbow Gathering. The story of a wanderer finding her path and discovering her tribe, is an important piece of ethnofiction. In writing it, Zirk gives us one of the best and most accessible descriptions of a Rainbow Gathering, allowing readers to experience it with all of its complexity and promise.

—Michael I. Niman, Ph.D. ,  People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia

Pounding drums in the woods around a late night bonfire, baking bread in old 50-gallon metal drums, auming/oming for world peace, and learning the lessons the universe is trying to teach.

In the midst of Redwood Summer in 1990, twenty-five year old visual artist, Sapphire Larson, sets out to resurrect the hippie father who vanished under a cloud of patchouli fifteen years earlier. Not only a peace activist, but a prophet and Hollywood actor, the mythological father of her childhood holds the key to her success as an adult – or so Sapphire believes.

Acting on a tip, she hitchhikes to the World Peace and Healing gathering. From tribal drumming at midnight, to women’s healing circles by day, Sapphire ignores the lessons the universe is trying to teach her while she struggles to reconstruct her childhood by finding her father.

She befriends a pregnant environmental activist from California’s lost coast, Lauren, whose own dreams of glory in the Redwood Forest are crumbling as her waistline is expanding. Vietnam Veteran Grizzly Bear Garth, haunted by the blood on his own hands, has tried to absolve himself by apprehending evil at the gathering. He befriends Sapphire and his stab at fathering her backfires when he reveals truths that destroy Sapphire’s dreams ‘of how things should be’ forever.

Lurking in the shadows is Mole, the troubled young man Sapphire befriends.  Ignoring her own instincts that Mole’s troubles run deep, Sapphire fails to intervene before tragedy strikes.

Peopled with flamboyant characters and mystical settings, in an alternative culture that emphasis self-reliance and opposes authority, Sapphire’s journey of discovery helps her find her place in this world.

I love sharing the book’s journey with book clubs. Invite me to be part of the discussion on Zoom. Learn more at Book Me.

Check out these blog posts featuring excerpts from the book, interviews with the author, and background information.

How to Buy the Book

If you can, please buy Falling From The Moon from your local independent book seller. This world needs independent book stores for poetry readings, writing workshops, and great conversation. If you don’t already know where your local independent bookstore is located, visit the Indie bookstore Finder and order the book from your local indie bookstore. You can also buy online from Indie Bound Bookshop where profits support independent book stores.

Falling From the Moon is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble in either paperback or eBook formats.

 The eBook version of Falling From The Moon is now available on your favorite eDevices. Check it out for Kobo, Nook, and Kindle.

Funding for completion of this novel was graciously provided by the Elizabeth George Foundation via a 2008 grant for unpublished writers. Thank you Elizabeth George!