Fault Lines
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Prix Femina, 2006. Nancy Huston tells a riveting tale, in which love, music and faith rage against the shape of evil.
Sol is a gifted but also terrifying six-year-old; his mother believes he is destined for greatness. He has a birthmark, like his dad, his grandmother and great-grandmother. But when they all make an unexpected trip to Germany, terrible secrets emerge about their family's story during World War II. Perhaps birthmarks are not all that has been passed down through this family.
With its domestic focus but epic scope, Fault Lines is a compelling, touching and often funny novel about four generations of children and their parents.
From California to New York, from Haifa to Toronto and Munich, the secrets unwind back through time, the present haunted by the past, until we reach the devastating truth.
'Combines the psychological tension of a thriller with sweeping literary brilliance. Huston…succeeds in exploring the darkest of subjects with a lightness of touch…Seamlessly shifting from one point of view to the next, the plot thickens to a searing climax.' Sydney Morning Herald
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Winner of France's Prix Femina and shortlisted for the Orange Prize, Huston's 12th novel captures four generations of a family and examines the decades-long fallout of a dark family secret. The novel proceeds in reverse chronological order from 2004 to 1944 and begins with six-year-old Sol, who is sheltered and coddled by his mother as he immerses himself in all the perversities the Internet can offer. After surgery to remove Sol's congenital birthmark turns out poorly, the extended family takes a trip to great-grandmother Erra's childhood home in Munich. A turbulent history underlies the visit, and after Sol witnesses a tussle between his great-grandmother and great-aunt, the novel skips backwards in time through the childhood of Sol's father, Randall; grandmother Sadie; and finally Erra. Huston's brilliance is in how she gradually lets the reader in on the secret and draws out the revelation so carefully that by the time the reader arrives at the heart of the matter in Munich 1944, the discovery hits with blunt force. Huston masterfully links the 20th century's misery to 21st-century discomfort in razor-sharp portraits of children as they lose their innocence.
