'A wonderful book. It's like a dress that Kahlo invented for herself and wore.'
John Berger
'Jay Griffiths' A Love Letter from a Stray Moon is a stunning allegory about love, art, and revolution. She makes every word, every scene, in this passionate narrative count. It's brilliant work.'
Barry Lopez
‘A Love Letter from a Stray Moon is a rich and extraordinary vision. It’s unrestrained; it’s as if Jay Griffiths had decided to put everything she knew and felt into this passionate poem of admiration and love for the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. There’s something entirely tropical about the uncompromising richness and intensity of the story, and yet it is a story, there is a strong narrative pulse. There are few people who can write stories like this, though. Jay Griffiths is a fearless adventurer with words and images. I salute her courage and the splendour of this vision.’
Philip Pullman
‘A Love Letter From a Stray Moon is an extraordinarily beautiful and
sustained prose poem, a call for engagement with the world, and a powerful
and astonishing feat of literary and retroactive telepathy. It is a book
about possession, in many forms, each of which is sparked by a
particular urgency; to comprehend, to celebrate, and to endure.’
Niall Griffiths
‘Vivid as a bloom in the jungle, visionary as a flight over a desert, a love song to life on earth.’
Joan London
‘Frida Kahlo’s life and work were indivisible, and with a power worthy of her subject Jay Griffiths has found a way of writing Kahlo's broken, prolific life. Through Griffiths we hear the voice of Frida Kahlo herself, as if she were speaking directly to us. It’s like reading poetry inside a great biographical novel. I absolutely devoured this wonderfully perceptive and sensitive book. I already knew a lot about Frida Kahlo’s life but rediscovered it in these pages from the inside out.’
Marie Darrieussecq
Reviews of A Love Letter from a Stray Moon:
‘A fierce, compelling homage’
The Age, Australia
‘Kahlo’s inner voice soars on Griffiths’s metaphorical flourishes, applied carefully like the brushstrokes of Kahlo’s brightly pigmented self-portraits… a multilayered work which creates a vivid sense of Kahlo’s elliptical life… [Griffiths has] a formidable mind’
The Sun-Herald, Australia
‘A raw and confronting piece of poetic prose… this bold and uncompromising portrait of the gifted, tormented mind that was Frida Kahlo… She brings Kahlo’s lifelong howl of physical and emotional pain to new heights with an energy that few retellings of her story have managed… a fearless adventurer of words, Griffiths is in great form’
Sunday Herald Sun, Australia
‘An interesting, enchanting author… the most beautiful, beautiful book’
Phillip Adams Late Night Live, ABC
‘A rapturous, crazy and gorgeous poem to art and to the human spirit. It is a text that trembles and shudders with life and melds form with emotion in the most organic way… breathtaking in its tremulous beauty… a profound reflection on universal concerns… Griffiths’ novel itself reminds us what it is to be a human being, born native to the earth, on fire with the joy of the universe and full of grief for our broken world. It is a love song to life, to art and to the human spirit.’
Alice Nelson, The West Australian
‘A Love Letter From a Stray Moon’
Book of the Month at Riverbend Books, Brisbane
‘There is an earthy, almost feral, element. The raw and erotic power of Kahlo’s voice takes centre stage. Kahlo’s personality shines.. Jay Griffiths has created an extraordinary feat of imagination’
The Weekend Press, New Zealand
