Aliens On the Moon by Thomas King
Ordinary lives are disrupted when aliens arrive
From the #1 bestselling and award-winning author of Indians on Vacation, a witty and wry novel set in a small Ontario town where all is seemingly ordinary except for one thing — aliens have landed on the moon.
In Thomas King's new novel, the citizens of a small Ontario town face life-changing decisions. Bria's grandmother asks her to take her great grandmother's rosary to Edmonton and return it in person to the Pope. When she flings it into the lake, the rosary somehow hits the Pope on the cheek, thousands of miles away. It is the same rosary. How is this possible?
Thea is furious at her son for putting her in an old-age home. She should have had a daughter. A daughter would never have forced her from her home. Darlene is mixed up with the no-good petty thief Billie. When she ends up in the hospital, she finds Thea's fanny pack on the floor. Darlene needs the $265 but she also wants a reward for returning the fanny pack.
Herb has bought the drive-in movie theatre on the edge of town and has turned it into his home. He watches movies on the big screen while treating the parking lot as his personal driving range. Should he travel west to see his family on the reserve?
Nico has a Subaru whose battery keeps failing but there are no replacements in North America. Gary and Brenda from the dealership are having an affair. Richard Dock wants to set up a dating profile but has no cell phone.
Just the stuff of ordinary life except for one thing: aliens have landed on the moon. They are watching earth and earthlings. What is their plan? With the arrival of the aliens, ordinary life is upended in ways that are both hilarious and revealing. While some people fear the aliens' three-part mandate to save the planet (which might have been written by a grade 9 student in the US), others think the arrival of the aliens is a golden opportunity for a deep discount weekend at Costco that could possibly rival Amazon's Black Friday.
(From HarperCollins Canada)
Aliens On the Moon is available in August 2025.
Thomas King is a Canadian-American writer of Cherokee and Greek ancestry. His books include Truth & Bright Water; Green Grass, Running Water, which was on Canada Reads in 2004; The Inconvenient Indian, which was on Canada Reads in 2015; and The Back of the Turtle, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 2014. He also writes the DreadfulWater mystery series.
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