A novella is a strange and wonderful thing these days, and quite beautiful in the case of Naming the Stars, which accompanies Jennifer Johnston's novel Two Moons. There is an efficiency to Johnston's writing, so that this concise and arresting story speaks not of impatience or clinical storytelling but of a desire for immediacy, as if Johnston wants to bring us right into the moment of a character's thoughts forming. The story opens in the present day with two old ladies, Flora and her companion-housekeeper, Nellie, rattling around in a grand old Irish house. They have always been on the periphery of local life, living at the edge of a small town where the years have been passing just barely within earshot. As their conversation over dinner unfolds, time becomes elastic; the past becomes vividly present and a horrible truth that has been locked away is shared.
