Synopses & Reviews
Michael Cunningham's novel
A Home at the End of the World introduced him as one of the most passionate of contemporary writers. In
Flesh and Blood, he has produced a work of broad sweep, powerful narrative drive, and intense feeling.
Flesh and Blood follows the Stassos family through four generations, as it is transformed by ambition, love, violence, and accumulating history. Constantine Stassos, a Greek immigrant, marries Mary Cuccio, an Italian-American girl, and they have three children, each fated to a complex life. Susan is oppressed by her beauty and her father's affections; Billy is brilliant, and gay; Zoe is a wild, heedless visionary. As the years pass, their lives unfold in ways that compel them, and their parents, to meet ever greater challenges. Zoe raises a child in New York with a transvestite friend; Billy searches for love and battles with his father; Susan raises a son whose explosive emotions bring the story to its climax.
Generous, masterfully crafted, alternately stirring and heartbreaking, Flesh and Blood is a rich and memorable sounding of contemporary life.
About the Author
Michael Cunningham
Flesh and Blood is Michael Cunningham's third novel. His first,
Golden States, was published in 1984. His second,
A Home at the End of the World, published in 1991, was widely acclaimed and was shortlisted for the Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize.
Cunningham has also published a wide array of short stories, including "White Angel" in The New Yorker (1988), "Pearls" in The Paris Review (1982), and "Ignorant Armies" in The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories (Viking/Penguin 1994). He has also written articles for publications such as Esquire, Vogue, and Out including "After AIDS, Gay Art Aims for a New Reality" for the front page of the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times in April 1992.
Having won numerous fellowships from institutions such as the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Cunningham has been awarded for his prose time and time again. His education includes a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and a Master of Arts from the University of Iowa, Writer's Workshop.
Michael Cunningham currently lives in New York City.