Two Moons

It's the spring of 1877 in Washington, D.C., and at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Hugh Allison's plan to project an image through time and space takes on urgent life when the mathematically gifted Cynthia May enters his orbit as one of the observatory's human "computers." But the fate of Hugh's heavenly vision—and of his love affair with Cynthia, a Civil War widow whose beauty has been shadowed by worry and poverty—may be out of his hands, decided instead by an astrologer and by the actions of a dangerously magnetic politician. Masterfully combining historical detail and startling invention, Thomas Mallon gives us a galvanizing story of earthly heartbreak and other-worldly triumph.

Thomas Mallon is the author of eight novels, including Watergate, Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman, and Fellow Travelers, and seven works of nonfiction. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. He lives in Washington, D.C.