Perpetua's Kin

M. Allen Cunningham writes a gorgeous story of a tangled family history that spans five generations. The Lorn family has secrets buried deeply in their history, but as they always seem to do, these secrets come to light and have a devastating effect upon the unaware descendants. Cunningham is a remarkable writer: his prose is delicate, touching, and lyrical, and his precise wrangling of the English language shines throughout this book. Set partially during the Civil War, and against a backdrop of the new technology known as the telegram, and addressing themes of family, home, truth, war, and love, Perpetua's Kin is an addictive read with fully fleshed characters and a story that won't unclasp it's grip on you.  Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com

Benjamin Lorn, sensitive son of an embittered Civil War veteran, comes of age in the tiny Iowa town of Perpetua where, in a single summer, he mourns the recent loss of his mother, falls in love, and uncovers a shameful family secret that sends him fleeing west. Tormented with this new knowledge, Benjamin seeks transcendence through the telegraph wires that have enchanted him since boyhood. Meanwhile the weight of a dark duty grows more and more pressing.

Thus begins Perpetua's Kin, M. Allen Cunningham's enthralling multi-generational mystery, reworking of Hamlet, and profoundly contemporary exploration of the American experience as one family embodies it. Spanning much of North America over more than a century, from the 1820s Midwest through the American south of the Civil War, to World War II San Francisco, Cunningham's novel is a powerful portrait of this nation's violent heritage, our vulnerability to the vastness of our own geography, our chronic restlessness and desire for regeneration through technology, and the impossibility of escaping the history that forms us and, always, demands a reckoning.

"With a vast scope and penetrating psychological depth, Perpetua’s Kin achieves what I want most from historical fiction, making the past not only vividly real but essential to our understanding of the complicated present." —Scott Nadelson, author of The Fourth Corner of the World

"Perpetua's Kin is beautiful, reminiscent of The Green Age of Asher Witherow in that it has the cadence I remember that takes the reader right in . . . M. Allen Cunningham gives us a book to savor—a fulfilling, substantial book, and a joy to read." —Janet Boreta, founder, Orinda Books, California

“A novel in conversation with Faulkner and Melville and possibly even Robert Louis Stevenson . . . A writer both original and well aware of the writers who have come before him. Cunningham’s writing, like the scope of his novel, is bold and ambitious.” —Peter Turchi, author, Maps of the Imagination

“With Perpetua's Kin, M. Allen Cunningham once again demonstrates he is one of the bravest and most talented novelists writing today. His prose sings with a rare kind of poetry, even as the story sweeps you along with its dark mystery and heartbreaking tension. With each page we gain the greatest gift of fiction: an insight into our own trembling humanity.” —Eowyn Ivey, author, The Snow Child

M. Allen Cunningham is the co-founder of the cultural commentary blog SoulShelter.com. His stories have appeared in many literary magazines including Glimmer Train and The Kenyon Review and have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is the author of Date of Disappearance, The Flickering Page, Funny-Ass Thoreau, The Green Age of Asher Witherow, The Honorable Obscurity Handbook, Lost Son, and Partisans. He lives in Portland, Oregon.