CHESTER’S MOONSCAPE

In Reynolds’ historical novel, a painter in mid-20th-century America is contracted to paint the moon—while standing on its surface.

In 1949, Chester Brache, an artist, dreams of traveling to space, even though he doubts he’ll ever have the opportunity. He makes his living painting Maryland landscapes, interspersed with scientifically accurate paintings of outer space for SF magazines. Because his paintings are realistic, rather than flashy, he’s not very popular, but he gets regular work from the magazine Future Tall Tales and its editor, Roger Clearwater. His life changes after he’s contacted by the people running a new magazine called Living Look Illustrated. It’s secretly run by the U.S. government, who hope to get the American public excited about space tourism, and its editors hire Chester to paint a series of special paintings on location. They fly Chester to the moon, where he spends several days painting: “There were none of the giant craggy peaks that so many artists—including himself—had painted over the years.” Then they send him home, promising more work for him in the future. His lunar landscapes are a huge success, and suddenly he’s forced to reckon with new things, including public attention and spending time away from his beloved wife, Helen, in increasingly distant locations. But the more Chester paints, the more public attention wanes, and his contacts at Living Look Illustrated become increasingly strange and frightening. Reynolds’ offbeat book presents readers with a compelling setup with SF overtones. Unfortunately, the first half of the novel tends to focus more on the process of creating fine art in space than it does on narrative propulsion, and, as a result, the characters mostly drift through a story that feels as bucolic as a landscape painting. A late plot twist swiftly amps up the action in the final pages, but the delayed reveal results in an ending that feels more frantic than exciting.

An intriguing concept hampered by uneven execution.