Daytime Moon - by Kerri Schlottman (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

When her big brother Cole unexpectedly shows up on her stoop, she's convinced: it's time to go home. Returning to the California desert, to late-night drag races along the toxic Salton Sea, Isa is forced to confront everything she's run away from: the impending death of her adoptive father, Dean, the haunting memories of her twin sister, and the secrets of a mother she never got to meet.

With Dean's last letter, he finally reveals something that ignites Isa's fearless internal drive. Going up and down California highways, through desert and forest, roaring coastline and border towns, she will follow the signs so delicately woven into the fabric of her life: a name, a constellation, a painting, a gleam of recognition on the water's surface. If she can piece them together, she just might reunite the shattered remains of her beloved family.

Artfully narrated as if by the moon herself, Shlottman's novel is an unforgettable journey through hidden stories, the depths of women's secrets, the shimmering fluidity of memory, and the magic of transmutation.

Review Quotes

Shelf Awareness Best Book This Week

2025 Storytrade Literary Fiction Finalist

2024 PenCraft Fiction

Award Winner 2023

American Book Fest Best Literary Fiction

"[A] dynamic, character-driven debut... Schlottman acutely nails the misty, gold-hued atmosphere of the 1980s, and deeply explores themes of class and privilege...This thought-provoking work will put readers on the lookout for what the author does next." ​Publishers Weekly

"At the start, the novel moves chronologically, with each section headed by the name and descriptive details of one of Quinn's photographs. Eventually, however, the sections loosen, with one dated 1990 and another titled Time Traveling and dated merely Various. This shift cleverly mirrors the way the novel increasingly blurs lines, leaving readers to question their understanding of such concepts as time, art and success." Shelf Awareness Best Books This Week

"Sensitive, stunning and staggeringly brilliant. I would give it ten stars if I could."​ Reedsy

"At once the expansive story of two women navigating two disparate, intersecting lives, and a thoughtful meditation on the transtemporal power of photography, Kerri Schlottman's Tell Me One Thing is that rare book: an art world novel with heart."​ Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead

"Kerri Schlottman has delivered us the richest of reading experiences. I read Tell Me One Thing voraciously with equal parts intrigue and admiration, thinking how did she pull this off? Slinking expertly between time and location and point of view--the contrasts here are bright and nuanced, honest and vulnerable, jagged yet tender. This is a novel of great heart, examining the lines we draw as we become who we are. A devastating and rich exploration of trauma, art-making, love, and the unmistakable hauntedness of what we cannot control, yet long to. I want everyone to read this book."​ Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman ​​​

"With a clear, empathic gaze, and with a sharp, startling intelligence, Kerri Schlottman's Tell Me One Thing traces two paths--that of artist, and that of subject--through the cruel disparities of the Reagan eighties and beyond. The result is a book that asks enduring questions about what art is for and what we, all of us, owe one another. Tell Me One Thing is phenomenal."​ Matthew Specktor, author of Always Crashing in the Same Car ​​

"In Tell Me One Thing, two women's stories begin in an instant--with a shutter click. Divergent yet inextricable, the paths and aspirations of a photographer and her young subject leap and shatter through the passage of four decades and at the mercy of American dearth, all of which Schlottman relays with understated grit and unflinching humanity. As we follow the photographer through seedy 1980s New York to today's commercially sterilized iteration, Schlottman proceeds to vivify a Polaroid snapped in a Pennsylvania trailer park, infusing viscerality and tragedy into a portrait that would have otherwise hung static on a collector's wall. By reframing an object to be admired as a child to be protected, Tell Me One Thing will both compel and confront readers with questions that only the finest of novels can posit." Jakob Guanzon, author of Abundance, longlisted for the National Book Award ​