Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

A Novel in Verse

Title: Dear Mothman
Author: Robin Gow
Publisher: Amulet Books
Publication Year: 2023
ISBN: 9781647008208
Rating: 5 stars

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Note: Author, Robin Gow is an autistic bisexual genderqueer person who prefers the pronouns it, fae, and he. Fae pronouns are brand new to me (though apparently that’s another form of first person singular pronouns!!) and I haven’t used “it” for a grown person before (and people get so mad when you call their babies “it”), so I am going to stick with he/him for the sake of clarity and since Gow does use all three of those pronouns in his author bio. I mention his identities because they tie into the story and an aspect of it I plan to discuss.

Sixth grade hasn’t been a great year for Noah (known to everyone as Nora). His best friend, Lewis, who he had kissed and was starting to like-like (known to everyone as Ella) died in a car accident and Noah feels completely lost and adrift. Without Lewis, no one knows that Nora is really Noah. Plus after Noah was put into mainstream classes in third grade, Lewis was really the one who helped keep him focused and on task in the classroom. Lewis understood Noah’s autism and wasn’t upset or offended if Noah missed a social cue. Lewis was really the only one who understood anything about Noah and without Lewis, Noah doesn’t know who he is anymore. Noah’s grades are plummeting and he risks not being promoted to the seventh grade, though he’s not sure he even cares. Without Lewis, Noah feels completely alone and misunderstood and just wants everyone to let him be.

In the months leading up to Lewis’s death, the boys had done a mythical creature project on Mothman (but by their own admission, they didn’t really fulfill the project requirements because Mothman is a Cryptid, and Cryptids are creatures most people think are fictional that are actually real). While Noah was mostly only pretending to believe in Mothman to humor Lewis, Lewis believed with everything in his being that Mothman was real and he could be found. So in the aftermath of Lewis’s death, Mothman feels like Noah’s only remaining connection to his best friend and Noah begins to believe. He believes that by finding Mothman, he will be able to feel like someone knows him again and that he can reclaim a small part of Lewis.

In an attempt to connect with Mothman, Noah starts writing him letters in his journal and leaving them out beneath a tree near his house. Noah doesn’t think anything will happen, but when the journal is open to the letter the next day, Noah thinks it might have just been the wind, but hopes it wasn’t. When the same pattern repeats every day, Noah starts to believe in Mothman with no reservations. In school, Noah has to pick a project for the sixth grade science fair (a project he and Lewis had been looking forward to doing together for years) and he decides that he needs to prove to everyone that Mothman exists. His teacher and parents try to gently steer him toward another project and the other kids laugh at and tease him, but Noah is convinced that this is what Lewis would have wanted, so he persists. He is hopeful when one day there seems to be a scribble in response to his letter and two times there is evidence that Mothman took refuge on Noah’s porch in the rain. He hasn’t yet captured photographic evidence, but when he thinks he sees Mothman outside his window, he is convinced that he will be able to.

When Noah’s mom tells him that he needs to leave the house and spend time with friends, he doesn’t know who that would be since Lewis was his one and only. He tries to hang out with Molly, Hanna, and Alice, three weird girls that spend recess LARPing (Live Action Role Playing). They only know him as Nora and they don’t compare to Lewis, but they start to grow on him. Eventually he feels safe enough to tell them that he is really Noah and they are caring and supportive. It seems like Hanna may even like-like him and Noah starts to feel the same. These feelings confuse him though because it feels like a betrayal to him to like-like someone else only a few months after Lewis’s death. When one of the girls accidentally calls him Noah in front of his mom, she asks if that is what he wants to be called. He says yes and she asks if she can tell his father as well. Noah agrees and though his parents do slip up and call him Nora, they are accepting and supportive of these changes.

During a sleepover at Noah’s house, he, Hanna, Molly, and Alice all see Mothman through the glass of the door. Molly and Alice run and hide, but Noah just sits there as Hanna locks the door so he can’t get in. Noah admits that he was also scared of Mothman and didn’t want him to come in, but still feels that he has betrayed the only person who understands him by doing that. He feels horrible and writes several letters to Mothman apologizing.

As the deadline for the science fair draws nearer and the voices of the Mothman doubters grow louder, Noah decides that trying to get proof of Mothman from his house isn’t working and he needs to go out into the woods to meet Mothman where he is. He sneaks out at night and is missing in the woods for multiple days until Hanna also sneaks into the woods hoping to find Mothman and Noah.

I really think Gow hit it out of the park with this book and I don’t think there was a single thing I didn’t like. Firstly, I love the novel in verse format. The verse reminded me a lot of Sharon Creech’s Heartbeat, which has been a favorite of mine for decades. I love the form because the writing can be stark with lines of beauty that really catch you off guard. When I first read Heartbeat as a middle schooler, I also felt that the staccato rhythm mirrored the way my own thoughts sounded in my head and as a result the story felt more authentic and real to me—like something a sixth grader might actually write. I felt the same way about Dear Mothman. But, if you aren’t a big fan of poetry, it definitely isn’t overly poetic; it still feels more like a story than a poem.

There is also the metaphor of the monster that I loved as well. Throughout the book, Noah is trying to decide if Mothman is actually a monster or people only think he is. In the same way, the things that make Noah different and his fear of how people will react also make him feel like a monster. Noah eventually decides that anyone who gets othered by society is perceived as a monster, but that there really isn’t anything monstrous about them. Noah also deals with some confusion—he views Mothman as his friend and the only person who understands him, but at the same time, he is a little bit afraid of Mothman, even though he doesn’t want to be. Similarly, Noah is a bit confused and afraid of his own identity. He doesn’t know if he wants to be Noah forever, but if he does, he worries that society won’t accept him. Several of the characters also wonder how Mothman came to be: Did he have parents? Did he get separated from a group of Mothpeople? Can separating yourself from society make you into a Mothman? These questions lead Noah to wonder if perhaps Lewis was able to become a Mothman after his death or if Noah could somehow transform himself into a Mothman out of loneliness. Ultimately, he decides that it’s not monstrosity that makes people like himself, Mothman, and Lewis special—it’s just a form of magic.

When I first started to see the gender identity/monster metaphor start to emerge, I got a little nervous about where the book was going. In general, I don’t think comparing queer and/or neurodivergent kids to monsters is helpful or productive, but in the acknowledgements section, Gow talks about how he felt really drawn to monsters while he was trying to figure out his identity and how like Noah the monsters helped him find a magic in being different (while I don’t think this book is autobiographical, I do think Noah is based heavily on Gow). I also remembered that feeling like a monster because of your differences was a theme in another of my favorite books: The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson and how that theme is one of the things that drew me to the book when I read it for the first time as a teenager. I think perhaps we all feel a little bit like monsters while we are trying to figure out who we are regardless of identity or sexuality. Chasing and believing in Mothman as a monster allows Noah to retain his childhood sense of wonder and curiosity while he examines serious topics that will define who he will be as an adult like his identity, his relationships to others, and what he believes happens after death.

I loved this book, but it was a hard book to read and I cried through most of it. It is recommended for ages 10-14, and deals with some really big topics. I don’t believe in keeping books from kids just because they deal with tough stuff, but I do think this is a book that adults and kids should read and discuss together because it’s a lot to process on your own.