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Flesh and Blood Michael Cunningham 9780374181130 Books

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Flesh and Blood Michael Cunningham 9780374181130 Books

I read this book years ago in a long-defunct book club. Even though I was an English major in college I'd pretty much lost all interest in reading fiction by then -- and still to this day -- preferring instead to bury myself in books about social science and American and European history. But I DEVOURED this book for our book club. Then a couple years later I devoured it again. And then I moved and lost the book in a box somewhere. But I still wanted to read it again, and I was glad to find a copy on here to order. In "Flesh and Blood," Michael Cunningham crafts a richly complex family narrative that germinates literally from the imagination of an eight-year-old boy as he plays in his father's garden in pre-war Greece. That boy -- mightily named Constantine Stassos -- eventually emigrates to America, marries an Italian immigrant, and becomes the imperious and by degrees powerless patriarch of an expanding family dynasty whose story is told both as a beautifully messy, eminently human drama and as a faceted metaphor for the American Dream filtered through a prism of post-war immigration, the uncertain but dogged progress of cultural assimilation, and the inconstantly evolving boundaries of familial love and obligation. It's as engrossing as it is complex, and as beautiful as it is essentially American. Clear your schedule for a weekend and read it.


Tags : Flesh and Blood [Michael Cunningham] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Following the Stassos family through four generations of ambition, love, violence, and change, a powerful narrative focuses on the turbulent lives of the Stassos children. By the author of <IT>A Home at the End of the World. <RO>75,Michael Cunningham,Flesh and Blood,Hill & Wang Pub,0374181136,General,Fiction,Fiction General,Popular American Fiction

Flesh and Blood Michael Cunningham 9780374181130 Books Reviews

Not often do I read a book that has not just a brilliant story but has a rendering of the language is such poetry and skill. I was more interested in Mr. Cunningham's prose and descriptions seeing that I continues to gasp at how he described the most mundane event to sucn lyricism. I have now read four books br Mr. Cunningham and await any other that he has forthcoming.
An earlier work (pre-The Hours) but an excellent book. A must-read for any Michael Cunningham fan!
Having being a huge lover of The Hours, both the novel and the adaptation, I’m unsure why it took me so long to get round to reading Flesh & Blood.

Cunningham writes about life, and all of its complexities, like no other, whilst also managing to write prose that is both easily digestible and relatively condensed.

I couldn’t recommend Flesh & Blood more, should you like to read fiction that explores the human psyche in the context of a family unit, and all of the space in-between.
As in The Hours, Cunningham catches the joy and sorrow of life through utterly convincing characters and tough relationships. Mary is a triumph, negotiating her way through three generations, often with sadness and confusion, but always love. So little remains - so much remains. There is nothing simple and uncomplicated- so this book is not for those who seek escape in fiction! But it’s brilliant.
There were times while I was reading this book that I said to myself, ' this is really happening'. There is a sadness running through this book that it is almost painful. Michael Cunningham tells the story of the Stassos family through several generations. Beautifully written, it touches the heart, wrenches it out and throws it on the ground.

Mary and Constantine have three children, Susan, Billy, and Zoe. Constantine is a raging bull of a man with a temper to match. Mary is a genteel lady and opposites may not truly attract in this relationship. Their dynamics in the family form the lives of their children, damaged and lost.

This book is so good that it's going to stick with you for a long time, I promise you. I can't wait to read more of Michael Cunningham's work.
In February 2015, the book discussion group at The LGBT Center in NYC discussed "Flesh and Blood," 20 years after the novel was released.

The novel covers 60 years (plus a coda in the future) and tells the story of the six major characters

-- Constantine is the quick-to-anger Greek immigrant father who will do anything (anything!) to get ahead. He's the dark side of the American dream. He starts out dirt poor, (literally "dirt poor" at the end of the first chapter) and worms his way up in suburban America. If I have a complaint, it's that his striving and anger may be a bit "one note."

-- Mary is Constantine's Italian wife who wants to be respected and appreciated, but continually falls short in Constantine's eyes. She wants everything to look perfect and to appear that she loves her children it's appearances that matter most to her. After a life of disappointment, she turns to shoplifting for fulfillment but is eventually convinced to recognize the value of relationships.

-- Susan is the oldest daughter who marries a father figure straight out of high school to get away from her nearly incestuous father. She grows up to be the respectable woman her mother longs to be. She longs for a passionate relationship (and briefly achieves it in an affair) but her husband Todd is too straight and driven to give it to her, or to give her the child she wants so badly. (Eventually she remarries, but it's an older man, another father figure.)

-- Billy is the middle son who grows up to be Will, a gym-rat hunk who likes looking good and enjoys disappointing his abusive father by taking a position below his education and skills. A number of his chapters are sexy. Eventually he meets and settles down with a doctor, not too muscular or handsome, but a perfect match. The psychology of their falling in love is completely believable and one of the crowning achievements of the book.

-- Zoe is the youngest daughter who remains a mystery to all. She's wild, living in squalor in the city, using drugs, having sex, turning tricks when necessary, and finally having a son with a Black man who leaves her, probably not knowing that he's a father. She suffers for her wildness (perhaps a cliché) and always remains slightly outside the major action of the novel.

-- Cassandra is Zoe's friend, the bland looking man who wears bright dresses and lives gloriously as a woman. Early on, it's Cassandra's advice that saves Zoe. As Will and the doctor's relationship seems very real, Cassandra and Mary's relationship is comparable in a different way. Who would believe that the woman who's concerned about appearances would eventually become best friends with an outrageous drag queen? But the relationship between Cassandra and Mary works in a number of amazing ways.

The story is told by revolving characters, each a year or two apart as defined in the chapter titles. Each chapter tells a complete little story and often leaves the reader with a cliff-hanger that makes him or her want to learn more about that character, but instead the next chapter advances to a different narrator and a different aspect of the full tale.

The language is beautifully poetic throughout. Some of the images and recollections are extraordinary, unexpected and yet perfect. (There may be few examples of some purple prose that slips over the top.) The ending, however, does approach melodrama with a few huge events that tie things together too cleanly and seem well depicted but perhaps unbelievable.

This is a masterful book that could be used to teach writing This is how to create believable characters. This is how to advance the plot. This is how people have sex. This is how people fall in love. This is how people die.

This is how a book quietly enters the modern canon.
I read this book years ago in a long-defunct book club. Even though I was an English major in college I'd pretty much lost all interest in reading fiction by then -- and still to this day -- preferring instead to bury myself in books about social science and American and European history. But I DEVOURED this book for our book club. Then a couple years later I devoured it again. And then I moved and lost the book in a box somewhere. But I still wanted to read it again, and I was glad to find a copy on here to order. In "Flesh and Blood," Michael Cunningham crafts a richly complex family narrative that germinates literally from the imagination of an eight-year-old boy as he plays in his father's garden in pre-war Greece. That boy -- mightily named Constantine Stassos -- eventually emigrates to America, marries an Italian immigrant, and becomes the imperious and by degrees powerless patriarch of an expanding family dynasty whose story is told both as a beautifully messy, eminently human drama and as a faceted metaphor for the American Dream filtered through a prism of post-war immigration, the uncertain but dogged progress of cultural assimilation, and the inconstantly evolving boundaries of familial love and obligation. It's as engrossing as it is complex, and as beautiful as it is essentially American. Clear your schedule for a weekend and read it.