First published 1988
Walter van Brunt stumbles through the late 1960s in a haze of marijuana and cheap wine, weighed down by his family's reputation for betrayal. When he encounters actual family spirits, the experience shakes him from his stupor and sets him on a quest to find his missing father. This search pulls Walter into a collision with history itself. The story moves backward through time, from Walter's present moment to the anticommunist violence of the 1940s and further back to the late seventeenth century. Three families emerge from the Hudson River Valley's buried past: the wealthy van Warts, the Native American Mohonks, and Walter's own van Brunt lineage. Their intertwined secrets span centuries, revealing how the sins and choices of previous generations echo through time to shape Walter's confused present.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Hudson River Valley, Mohonks
Period: 1940s, 1960s, 17th Century
456 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books