The Faulkes Chronicle - Softcover

"The slow death of the matriarch of the Faulkes clan becomes an occasion, in this lovely, moving novel, for a meditation not on death but on life. Over the months during which their beloved mother both gradually fades away and yet becomes, as her end approaches, incandescently present, her many children -- and her husband and her physician -- make their way along grief's hard road by telling stories about her, about each other, and about themselves. Only a novelist as gifted as David Huddle is could make a tale whose sad conclusion is already known both mesmerizing and ultimately affirming. To chronicle something is to document its events and occasions, of course, and The Faulkes Chronicle is a beautiful, triumphant record of the ties that bind a family together in the face of its greatest tragedy." -- Carrie Brown, author of The Last First Day --Advance Praise

"Death comes for everyone, of course, but when it comes for the mother of the improbably large Faulkes family, it takes on a transformative aspect that astonishes her children, mesmerizes strangers, and confounds her caregivers. As observed by one of the more than 30 children ascribed to the Faulkes clan, their mother's capitulation to cancer is less a battle, more an internal pas de deux; she grows thinner and frailer, but in doing so she sheds the hefty plainness that the Faulkeses wear as a badge of pride and abandons the famous Faulkes stoicism for whimsy and guile. Their mother's emerging beauty draws each child, from adult to infant, into her aura as they greedily monopolize and gratefully share their remaining moments together. A vividly striking yet subtly nuanced portrait of a family's past and future emerges despite, or perhaps because of, a present mired in perplexing uncertainty and assured grief. Children pop up like toadstools, offering nothing more than a pithy observation or plaintive memory, yet in Huddle's (Nothing Can Make Me Do This, 2011) dexterous hands a few words can convey volumes. The Faulkes clan is indomitable, and Huddle is a master at mining the depths of a discomfiting situation. A marvel." Carol Haggas, STARRED review, Booklist --BOOKLIST Starred review