Product Description

In Flesh and Blood, Michael Cunningham takes us on a masterful journey through four generations of the Stassos family as he examines the dynamics of a family struggling to "come of age" in the 20th century.

In 1950, Constantine Stassos, a Greek immigrant laborer, marries Mary Cuccio, an Italian-American girl, and together they produce three children: Susan, an ambitious beauty, Billy, a brilliant homosexual, and Zoe, a wild child. Over the years, a web of tangled longings, love, inadequacies and unfulfilled dreams unfolds as Mary and Constantine's marriage fails and Susan, Billy, and Zoe leave to make families of their own. Zoe raises a child with the help of a transvestite, Billy makes a life with another man, and Susan raises a son conceived in secret, each extending the meaning of family and love. With the power of a Greek tragedy, the story builds to a heartbreaking crescendo, allowing a glimpse into contemporary life which will echo in one's heart for years to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #638306 in Books
• Published on: 1996-05-22
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Cunningham presents a family saga of an ambitious but frustrated immigrant and the wildly disparate paths his children undertake.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The story of Constantine Stassos freshly examines the American immigrant experience and conflict between generations. He, wife Mary, and three children Susan, Will, and Zoe seemingly embody solid middle-class values. However, Constantine's cruelty, voracious appetites, and questionable business practices poison his marriage and brutalize his children. Through painful quests for independence, personal balance, and community, the Stassos children learn acceptance of themselves and their siblings. Fairly brief episodes, often occuring years apart, recount key moments in the establishment, disintegration, and reconfiguration of the family. Thoroughly realized action, vivid character delineation, and the splendid control of language guarantee both the unity and powerful impact of this successful novel by the author of The Home at the End of the World (LJ 10/15/90). Very highly recommended.
Jane S. Bakerman, Indiana State Univ., Terre Haute
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Family defines us, one way or another. In Cunningham's empathic and searing family drama, the haphazardness of genetics and fate plays in mocking counterpart to the predictability of heartache. Author of the widely acclaimed novel The Home at the End of the World (1990), Cunningham is a tenacious and word-perfect writer with acute insight into the eccentricity of personalities and the chemistry of intimate relationships. He stretches this sorrowful saga across an entire century, beginning in 1935 in Greece, where a boy suffers poverty and neglect. Constantine Stassos eventually immigrates to the U.S., where he marries a lovely and industrious young woman, amasses a fortune, and turns his attractive home into a living hell. No one goes unscathed, from his suffocating wife, Mary, through his self-negating eldest daughter, his acerbic gay son, and his younger daughter, Zoe, a strangely feral child. As the years go by and abrupt social changes become the rack upon which families are wrenched and broken, each member of the Stassos clan struggles to achieve love and respect. Cunningham, in a remarkable performance, inhabits the psyche of each of his striking characters as they find themselves in one surprising situation after another. Donna Seaman

Customer Reviews

Good but familiar...
"Flesh and Blood" is the story of a multigenerational Greek American family, helmed by Constantine Stassos, a traditional patriarch whose moral weaknesses lead to his family's sad downfall. The family line is battered and bruised, and reduced in numbers, as a result of Constantine's failures as a parent. There is some deconstruction of the traditional family going on here, and some hints that difficulties in life are a punishment for sin. The novel is almost biblical in its scope, although its moral compass is post-modern and progressive.

What kept me from loving "Flesh and Blood" (although I did like it very much) is that its story is not terribly original. As a fan of "The Hours" and "A Home at the End of the World," I have come to expect certain themes from Michael Cunningham. His books often deconstruct the nuclear family, examine the spectre of the AIDS pandemic, and feature alternative families. All of these things were familiar to me from reading "Home, " and they are all present in "Flesh" as well. I also think there are better multigenerational epics out there, such as "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. If you have read all of these books, you may find that "Flesh and Blood" covers familiar ground. I know I did.

Very disappointing
I was really looking forward to reading this book after seeing a brilliant stage adaptation Off-Broadway several years ago starring the amazing Cherry Jones as Mary. For some reason, this lengthy novel that follows generations of an American family worked much better on the stage, which is hard to believe. You would think there would be so much left out and the novel would make a much better medium for character exploration and development. I was also surprised how little I enjoyed this book considering how great I thought Michael Cunningham would be as a writer. I have The Hours but have yet to read it and loved the movie, but this book was an unsatisfying introduction to his novels. I found it very, very hard to get through and set it aside several times to read more pleasurable books instead. I found the language used seemed like it was trying to be overly poetic and instead read as boring and pretentious. I still find it odd how much more successful the adaptation, by Peter Gaitens, was compared to the source material. There are certainly interesting elements contained in this novel, but they are frustratingly hard to find within the 466 pages of Flesh and Blood.

Incredible language, decent plot
Flesh and Blood follows the Stassos family through 100 years of love, hate, guilt, and forgiveness, and in doing so, examines, questions, and redefines the American Dream. Cunningham's language is at once lush and eloquent, and his descriptions of both physical and emotional events are breathtakingly true to life. The book recreates not only the American experience, but the human experience as well.

The story is certainly captivating and compelling, but, if you have read The Hours, many of the themes (the relationship between young gay sons and their mothers, AIDS, suicide, parents feeling unqualified) will feel recycled. Furthermore, the plot itself is a bit untidy (typical of a family saga). It felt as if much of Flesh and Blood was practice for what Cunningham would master in The Hours.