Description
Book SynopsisWomen on the block called Mac''s sister Madeline a beauty, a ''real Princess Grace''. But in spite of her height and mature body, to Mac, his sister never looked any different to other children. Until one summer evening in 1960, when his cousin Buddy taunted him with the odd truth of their family: Madeline was not really Mac''s sister, but his father''s first wife. A terrible accident had left her brain-damaged, with the intellect of a seven-year-old. When his father remarried, Madeline became part of his new family, devotedly cared for by his second wife like one of their own children.
In 2003, Mac, now a middle-aged doctor, attends the funeral of Buddy''s son, killed in Iraq. There, the divisions that drove two branches of their family apart are brought sharply into focus: on one side, belligerently liberal doves, on the other, defiantly patriotic hawks. Also revealed is the impact of Madeline''s tragedy on the family, how it has shaped and altered forever the boundaries of lov
Trade Review
Jane Hamilton's trademark milieu is the ordinary American family, elevated to an almost epic nobility. Her fifth novel continues this tradition, with the rising bodycount in war providing the topical backdrop to an examination of the notions of devotion and sacrifice. * SEVEN magazine, Sunday Telegraph *
Exquisite . . . this carefully nuanced tale has the texture and discursive quality of a memoir, in which the narrator deciphers family secrets by reflecting on pivotal moments from the past. * Wall Street Journal *
A beautifully crafted and many-layered novel. * Waterstones Books Quarterly *
A wonderful novel, having an extraordinary scope, taking a strange family tale and situating it in the context of the United States' role in Vietnam and then in Iraq . . . homely and ambitious at the same time. * Sunday Express *
A vital and absorbing human drama . . . her most distinguished work so far, a story in which tragedy is balanced brilliantly against the consolations and pleasures of ordinary life . . . only a writer as skilful as Hamilton could produce a work so revelatory of the human spirit. * Washington Post *
