Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The best family sagas

Recently at the Wall Street Journal, Cynthia Crossen tagged several worthy family sagas, including:
World's End
by T.C. Boyle

Perhaps my favorite family saga is T.C. Boyle's "World's End," a novel that traces some Hudson Valley families from 1663 to 1969. In 1663, Jeremias Van Brunt, newly settled with his family on a small hardscrabble farm near Peterskills, loses his right foot to a snapping turtle and gangrene. Three hundred years later, his descendant, Walter Van Brunt, high on wine and pot, loses his right foot in a motorcycle accident. Shaken by visions of the past, Walter searches for his dead father but then tries to flee when he finds his ghost. "No use fighting it," his father tells him. "It's in the blood, Walter. It's in the bones."
Read about another book Crossen recommends.

--Marshal Zeringue