M. Allen Cunningham
P e r p e t u a ' s K i n
released September 2018
*One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Season, New York Magazine's Vulture
*A Favorite Summer Read, The Oregonian
*A Powell's Books Staff Pick (Oregon)
* A Northshire Bookstore Staff Pick (New York)
* A Front Porch Pick, The Quivering Pen
* Included in the American Booksellers Association Indiebound White Box, August 2018
*A Goodreads Pick for the 2019 Tournament of Books
*A Favorite Summer Read, The Oregonian
*A Powell's Books Staff Pick (Oregon)
* A Northshire Bookstore Staff Pick (New York)
* A Front Porch Pick, The Quivering Pen
* Included in the American Booksellers Association Indiebound White Box, August 2018
*A Goodreads Pick for the 2019 Tournament of Books
Perpetua's Kin Book Trailers:
The author of the much acclaimed #1 Indie Next Pick The Green Age of Asher Witherow returns with an enthralling new novel eleven years in the making.
Epic in scope and yet intimate in its emotional power, Perpetua's Kin is a multi-generational mystery, a reworking of Hamlet, and a profoundly contemporary exploration of the American experience as one family embodies it: our 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. In the nonlinear, fragmentary manner of memory and inherited stories, the novel moves across much of North America over more than a century, from Pennsylvania and Iowa in the 1820s, through an American south embroiled in civil war, to the remote west of the 1880s, and finally to World War II San Francisco. What emerges is a portrait of a family shaped as much by tumultuous world events as by its members' long-kept secrets.
Epic in scope and yet intimate in its emotional power, Perpetua's Kin is a multi-generational mystery, a reworking of Hamlet, and a profoundly contemporary exploration of the American experience as one family embodies it: our 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. In the nonlinear, fragmentary manner of memory and inherited stories, the novel moves across much of North America over more than a century, from Pennsylvania and Iowa in the 1820s, through an American south embroiled in civil war, to the remote west of the 1880s, and finally to World War II San Francisco. What emerges is a portrait of a family shaped as much by tumultuous world events as by its members' long-kept secrets.
praise for perpetua's kin:
“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 of To the Bright Edge of the World
and Pulitzer Prize Finalist
“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 of A Muse and a Maze,
and judge for the Oregon Literary Fellowship
"Perpetua's Kin blew me away with its stark, astonishing music.
I've never seen the raw devastations of war brought alive in
language so uncannily beautiful, so powerfully strange.
This is a flat-out brilliant book."
-LENI ZUMAS
author of Red Clocks, The Listeners, and Farewell Navigator
"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 its grip on you."
-DIANAH H.
Powell's Books Staff Pick (Portland, OR)
"M. Allen Cunningham delivers a tour de force performance in Perpetua's Kin,
a novel that materializes — almost as if by magic — as both a sprawling epic
and a series of exquisitely wrought miniatures. Drawing on his impressive palette
of literary craft and lyricism, Cunningham transports the reader across
the continent, through multiple eras, and into the souls of his characters.
Perpetua's Kin is an aching meditation on solitude and connection, and
the vast American landscape that breeds both."
-JUSTIN HOCKING
author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld
"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.
M. Allen Cunningham’s novel takes us on a journey into our messy
and violent American legacy and offers us a pathway out,
confronting brutal truths and embracing hard-won compassion."
-SCOTT NADELSON
author of The Fourth Corner of the World
"A poetic, kaleidoscopic look at inter-generational pain, love, longing,
and restlessness, through the lenses of war and telegraphy."
-CAROLYN KULOG
owner, Betty's Books (Baker City, OR)
"In Perpetua’s Kin, Cunningham draws compelling characters whose lives
are tangled knots and whose stories are intricately woven through time and place.
From the first sentence to the last, the lyric majesty of Cunningham’s prose
ushers us on a brilliant magic carpet ride steered by a master storyteller."
-GINA OCHSNER
author of The Hidden Letters of Velta B. and The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
"Perpetua's Kin manages to echo a nation's secrets and recriminations
within one family's relationships, slowly revealing facts and attempted forgiveness
as it travels through time. Cunningham dexterously focuses on rich, specific
moments between characters, allowing the mysteries of the past to gradually,
inevitably surface. Like the invisible electricity of the telegraph,
or a retrieved packet of hidden letters, this narrative's power is irresistible."
-PETER ROCK
author of Spells and My Abandonment
"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 of Orinda Books (CA)
"M. Allen Cunningham has once again raised the bar on the art of the novel.
I enjoyed Perpetua's Kin as one would a rare smoky scotch — savoring the complexity.
Perpetua's Kin may be a distinctly American portrait, but the overarching
themes — war, love, wanderlust, suffering — are universal.
I walk away from a reading like this ruminating on the largeness of life
and the lasting impact of the arts -- the lasting influence that
novelists can have on every one of us."
-NANCY SCHEEMAKER
Northshire Bookstore Staff Pick (Saratoga Springs, NY)
"I very much hope [Perpetua's Kin] reaches as many readers' hands
as possible...expansive in scope and ideas...precise and tight in language.
For me, over the course of three days, it cut through the bells and whistles
constantly demanding our attention and let me sink into its enchanting world."
-HANS WEYANDT
Milkweed Books (Minneapolis, MN)
"Tolstoy posited that 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy
in its own way.' By the same token, every family harbors its unique secrets.
Immense anguish and resentment can ensue when those secrets are revealed
(as they almost always are, wittingly or unwittingly), affecting multiple generations.
The family so expertly imagined by M. Allen Cunningham in Perpetua's Kin has its share
of such secrets and its share of commensurate pain as the truth wills out. From the battlefields
of the Civil War to Ocean Beach in 1940s San Francisco, the characters in this family strive
to understand each other's demons and motivations. Are we condemned to repeat the past?
Or can we make peace with our legacy and move on with our lives?
Much to contemplate in this thought-provoking novel."
-MARION ABBOTT
owner, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore (Berkeley, CA)
"Weaving several meaningful themes ... [Perpetua's Kin] is both
questioning and underscoring a number of basic American assumptions.
The first involves heroism and the Civil War ... the second considers
the entrepreneur spirit of the American West ... finally, and most importantly,
Cunningham is pondering notions of family inheritance and family angst.
Why can’t we break free from parents and the past? What heavy burdens
do we unknowingly carry? Cunningham’s style [is] verbal pointillism.
Staccato daubs of sentences and paragraph, truncated letters and
whispered conversations, unhappy mixtures and matches of past
and present ... The style, in effect, resembles dits and dots
of the telegraph system, interrupted sequences of
electrical energy that somehow tell a tale..."
-ANN RONALD, (for Bookin' with Sunny)
author of Friendly Fallout 1953
and The New West of Edward Abbey
and Foundation Professor of English
at the University of Nevada, Reno
"Perpetua's Kin takes readers on a journey from the western theater of the Civil War
to 1940s San Francisco as it traces the fortunes -- and misfortunes -- of the Lorn family.
A classic multigenerational family saga. A beautiful love letter to the written word.
A literary work that rightfully takes its time. A flowing tale that brings to light lesser-known
aspects of generally well-known time periods.
A treat for anyone who enjoys elegant writing."
-Historical Novels Review
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 of To the Bright Edge of the World
and Pulitzer Prize Finalist
“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 of A Muse and a Maze,
and judge for the Oregon Literary Fellowship
"Perpetua's Kin blew me away with its stark, astonishing music.
I've never seen the raw devastations of war brought alive in
language so uncannily beautiful, so powerfully strange.
This is a flat-out brilliant book."
-LENI ZUMAS
author of Red Clocks, The Listeners, and Farewell Navigator
"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 its grip on you."
-DIANAH H.
Powell's Books Staff Pick (Portland, OR)
"M. Allen Cunningham delivers a tour de force performance in Perpetua's Kin,
a novel that materializes — almost as if by magic — as both a sprawling epic
and a series of exquisitely wrought miniatures. Drawing on his impressive palette
of literary craft and lyricism, Cunningham transports the reader across
the continent, through multiple eras, and into the souls of his characters.
Perpetua's Kin is an aching meditation on solitude and connection, and
the vast American landscape that breeds both."
-JUSTIN HOCKING
author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld
"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.
M. Allen Cunningham’s novel takes us on a journey into our messy
and violent American legacy and offers us a pathway out,
confronting brutal truths and embracing hard-won compassion."
-SCOTT NADELSON
author of The Fourth Corner of the World
"A poetic, kaleidoscopic look at inter-generational pain, love, longing,
and restlessness, through the lenses of war and telegraphy."
-CAROLYN KULOG
owner, Betty's Books (Baker City, OR)
"In Perpetua’s Kin, Cunningham draws compelling characters whose lives
are tangled knots and whose stories are intricately woven through time and place.
From the first sentence to the last, the lyric majesty of Cunningham’s prose
ushers us on a brilliant magic carpet ride steered by a master storyteller."
-GINA OCHSNER
author of The Hidden Letters of Velta B. and The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
"Perpetua's Kin manages to echo a nation's secrets and recriminations
within one family's relationships, slowly revealing facts and attempted forgiveness
as it travels through time. Cunningham dexterously focuses on rich, specific
moments between characters, allowing the mysteries of the past to gradually,
inevitably surface. Like the invisible electricity of the telegraph,
or a retrieved packet of hidden letters, this narrative's power is irresistible."
-PETER ROCK
author of Spells and My Abandonment
"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 of Orinda Books (CA)
"M. Allen Cunningham has once again raised the bar on the art of the novel.
I enjoyed Perpetua's Kin as one would a rare smoky scotch — savoring the complexity.
Perpetua's Kin may be a distinctly American portrait, but the overarching
themes — war, love, wanderlust, suffering — are universal.
I walk away from a reading like this ruminating on the largeness of life
and the lasting impact of the arts -- the lasting influence that
novelists can have on every one of us."
-NANCY SCHEEMAKER
Northshire Bookstore Staff Pick (Saratoga Springs, NY)
"I very much hope [Perpetua's Kin] reaches as many readers' hands
as possible...expansive in scope and ideas...precise and tight in language.
For me, over the course of three days, it cut through the bells and whistles
constantly demanding our attention and let me sink into its enchanting world."
-HANS WEYANDT
Milkweed Books (Minneapolis, MN)
"Tolstoy posited that 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy
in its own way.' By the same token, every family harbors its unique secrets.
Immense anguish and resentment can ensue when those secrets are revealed
(as they almost always are, wittingly or unwittingly), affecting multiple generations.
The family so expertly imagined by M. Allen Cunningham in Perpetua's Kin has its share
of such secrets and its share of commensurate pain as the truth wills out. From the battlefields
of the Civil War to Ocean Beach in 1940s San Francisco, the characters in this family strive
to understand each other's demons and motivations. Are we condemned to repeat the past?
Or can we make peace with our legacy and move on with our lives?
Much to contemplate in this thought-provoking novel."
-MARION ABBOTT
owner, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore (Berkeley, CA)
"Weaving several meaningful themes ... [Perpetua's Kin] is both
questioning and underscoring a number of basic American assumptions.
The first involves heroism and the Civil War ... the second considers
the entrepreneur spirit of the American West ... finally, and most importantly,
Cunningham is pondering notions of family inheritance and family angst.
Why can’t we break free from parents and the past? What heavy burdens
do we unknowingly carry? Cunningham’s style [is] verbal pointillism.
Staccato daubs of sentences and paragraph, truncated letters and
whispered conversations, unhappy mixtures and matches of past
and present ... The style, in effect, resembles dits and dots
of the telegraph system, interrupted sequences of
electrical energy that somehow tell a tale..."
-ANN RONALD, (for Bookin' with Sunny)
author of Friendly Fallout 1953
and The New West of Edward Abbey
and Foundation Professor of English
at the University of Nevada, Reno
"Perpetua's Kin takes readers on a journey from the western theater of the Civil War
to 1940s San Francisco as it traces the fortunes -- and misfortunes -- of the Lorn family.
A classic multigenerational family saga. A beautiful love letter to the written word.
A literary work that rightfully takes its time. A flowing tale that brings to light lesser-known
aspects of generally well-known time periods.
A treat for anyone who enjoys elegant writing."
-Historical Novels Review
An excerpt from Perpetua's Kin was published in Catamaran, Fall 2013. On the basis of his work in Perpetua’s Kin, M. Allen Cunningham received a 2018 Project Grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, an Oregon Literary Fellowship from Literary Arts, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission, a Yaddo residency, and was awarded Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train Family Matters competition.
ISBN: 9780997652376
336 pages / $17.00 cover price
9 x 6 trade paperback
Distributed throughout North America by Ingram and Baker & Taylor
336 pages / $17.00 cover price
9 x 6 trade paperback
Distributed throughout North America by Ingram and Baker & Taylor
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