Flesh And Blood

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully done!
Review: "Flesh and Blood" is the saga of three generations of the Stassos family. Mary and Constantine are first generation immigrants. Italian and Greek respectively. They meet as teenagers and marry during the 1950's. Their marriage yields three children, Susan, Billy and Zoe. Constantine focuses on obtaining wealth and possessing things, believing that wealth would somehow elevate his status as an American and remove the stigma of his poor Greek upbringing. Mary sees their marriage as a means of escape from her family only to discover that she's married a brut with a temper who physically and emotionally terrorizes his family.

Each child learns to survive the family by finding their own escape. Susan tries to emulate what she thinks her mother is missing - thing that should prevent her father's fits of anger. In doing so, Susan takes on the responsibility of comforting her father, explaining him and requesting her siblings' patience with him. Her love for her father, and her desire to please him, prove to be a dangerous emotional combination. Billy's relationship with their father is tumultuous from the start. As a child whose sensibilities are not masculine enough for what Constantine desires in a son, Billy was often on the receiving end of the physical and verbal eruptions of his father. With a defiance as strong as his father's temper, Billy managed to survive the household and emerge as Will, a Harvard educated teacher who is accepting of his sexuality but never finds any love for his father. Zoe is the youngest child who spends the majority of her life trying to disappear. As an adult, she looses herself in drugs and chemically induced freedom until she becomes pregnant and discovers that she has reason to live.

These are the trimmings of the story; the meat is in how Cunningham manages to pull it together. The characters are intricately imagined, the prose flawlessly scripted. The author is able to draw out the humanity of each character ways that allow you to love, hate and empathize with them. Cunningham is a wonderful talent. He can be counted on to deliver stories that are powerfully emotive and expertly imagined. An excellent read.

Rating:
Summary: Can you say "predictable"?
Review: ...None of the characters is likeable and nothing interesting happens. Also, you can see the big tragedy coming from the first mention of sailing lessons. I also did not find anything particularly remarkable in Cunningham's writing style. After reading all the glowing reviews I expected something much more engaging. This is just one more example of the mediocre tastes most Americans have in literature. If you truly love great books, don't waste your time.


Rating:
Summary: Hugely ambitious and stunningly rendered
Review:

Yes, "sweeping epic" certainly describes this beautiful novel, but don't let that stop you from reading it! While the novel spans four generations of the Stassos family, Cunningham manages to cast a penetrating eye on America itself in the context of its own historical myth: immigration, class, independence and social mores are the subtext of all that occurs.

But it is the specific, emotional richness of the narrative and the beautifully rendered internal lives of the characters that make this such a compelling read. Cunningham creates both men and women (and the inbetween) with equal aplomb. The dialog, too, is spot-on, and it's clear we are in the hand of a master wordsmith.

"Flesh & Blood" is ambitious in nearly every way, and succeeds in embracing the sheer hugeness of life. It's a stunning work from one of today's greater writers.

Rating:
Summary: Almost a masterpiece
Review: A cold, claustrophobic epic with the richness of sensuous prose and the richest of characters. Being a 'literary hound' I read a lot of what's good (and bad) for us, but this tragic story stayed with me for weeks. This is so full of profound adventure and heart-wrenching emotion, which culminates in an unexpected morality play for everyone who lives, regardles of the point of view of his life.

Rating:
Summary: An old-fashioned saga for the masses.
Review: After having read Michael Cunningham's 2 masterpieces The Hours and Home at the End of the World, this long and rambling tale is a bit of a surprise and a let down. It's alternative title could be "Anything that can go wrong in an Upper-middle class family in America". All the elements of a made-for-TV movie are there - immigrant made good, marriage, adultery, divorce, sex, betrayal, drugs, a gay son, a cross-dresser with a heart of gold, homophobic father, tragedy, death, AIDS, coming to terms....Thankfully, Cunningham saves this tome from the grasp of mediocrity by avoiding the broad strokes that lesser writers would use on the characters. Also evident is his mastery of the language. The poetry is still there but Cunningham's talent and ambitions are better served outside the terrain of pulp fiction.

Rating:
Summary: A graceful and haunting narrative.
Review: Although I loved The Hours, I approached this book - written several years earlier - with modest expectations. Twenty pages in, I realized I'd stumbled upon one of those rare books that engages the reader on several different levels: a deeply moving saga held aloft by beautiful writing. This book offers a resonant, complex, and often painful reverie on the mysteries of identity, what is passed down from one generation to the next through blood and spirit.

Rating:
Summary: A good read, but not for the impatient
Review: Although the plot is a bit slow at times, Cunningham's grasp of language and symbolism is extraordinary. He has created unforgettable characters by virtue of their eccentricities, and at times grotequeness. His description of their emotions was a bit trite at times, and as I noted, the book was a bit long. However, he was going for an epic tale of three generations of the Stassos family and I suppose that length is of necessity when one aims for "epicness." All in all, a good read, however certainly not for the mild-hearted or impatient.

Rating:
Summary: middleweight family drama
Review: An ambitious and absorbing book, many strong characters but too much cliche and melodrama to make it truly interesting or revelatory. It may be true that there is no history only biography, but Michael Cunningham's work belongs in the People's magazine area where many readers would prefer a little more meat to their flesh and blood.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece!
Review: Author Michael Cunnighami s a brillant writer and delivers a piece of fictional work chronchileing the lives of the Stassos family. (Constantine, Mary, Billy, Susan and Zoe)
Constantine: Stout and firm believer in the "old world" values.
Mary: Who tries to make the perfect life for her family.
Billy: The gay son who will never be a man in his father's eyes, yet trying to come to grips with his own identity.
Susan: Who shares a dark secret w/her father and ends up losing a part of her life.
Zoe: The free spirit whose time is growing short, yet she leaves a part of her behind for the next generation.
Cunnigham's writing is richly layered and full of symbolic meaning. It is amazing to me that people don't always pick up on the symbolism and concentrate soley on the story. (I keep thinking about the birthday cake scene in this book comapred to a similar scene in The Hours). I have read this book for two book groups here in Chicago and each time it was greeted with rave reviews. This book moves and in parts resemble very much our own families; our own "Flesh and Blood." As always Cunningham draws a line to the readers's heart and touches the soul.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant novel by the author of "The Hours"
Review: Basically there are two kinds of novels, those that detail a specific event (a love affair, a tragedy, etc) and those that just ramble hither and yon telling no specific story. As a rule, I'm not a big fan of novels that ramble. "Flesh and Blood" is a ramble. However, I was totally enthralled from start to finish. This is the story of the Stassos family. It begins in 1939 and ends in the present day. This is the most intimate portrait of a family I've ever read. Each of the characters is fully realized, drawn with a clarity that insists on presenting each as unique and individual. Each possess the basic ambiguities of characte and personality that define us as human beings. No one is without flaw. No one is always right or always wrong. Families love and hate, exhilarate and exasperate, praise and disparage in equal measure. There is joy and there is sorrow. I felt transported as I read this novel. It is one of the best that I have ever read. I couldn't stand setting it down, and couldn't wait to get back to it when I had. What better recommendation for a novel but that it was so involving I felt I was a silent character with a vested interest in the everyday existence of this truly American family? Michael Cunningham, author of "The Hours" and "A Home At the End of the World," is a modern master. READ THIS BOOK.