Fucking amazing.

Flesh and Blood is the story of a complicated family that started with the marriage at a very early age of Greek immigrant, Constantine, and Italian immigrant, Mary. They eventually have three children, Susan, Billy and Zoe, while Constantine struggles to make a living in construction on Long Island. Susan is the golden child over whom Constantine obsesses and whose presence makes her increasingly uncomfortable; Billy is academically brilliant, an outlier and the object of his father's frequent physical and verbal assaults; Zoe is the quiet child who observes her family from a quiet distance.

Cunningham deftly captures the dynamics of this group of individuals, all of whom are alienated from each other at some time for some reason with the mother wringing her hands in the background. The father's disappointment in and disapproval of his son's gay lifestyle is irreparable at an early age. His subsequent violent rages create a distance that can never be bridged. The most sympathetic character for me was the drag queen, Cassandra, with her unwavering loyalty and love at a time when it was most needed. The ending is especially poignant.

Kniha mě prostě nemohla zklamat, autor je pro mne zárukou živočišných postav, lidských emocí a tragédií a plynulého děje. Novinkou pro mne byl finálový a nečekaný karambol, trochu ve stylu J. Irvinga.

I didn't enjoy this quite as much as the other two Michael Cunningham novels I've read - The Hours and Specimen Days. It's less adventurous. Flesh and Blood is a family saga which takes place from the 1960s through to the 1990s and is narrated from the perspective of a father, a mother, a son and two daughters. Cunningham can write women really well and also the unhappy struggles to conform to what is pinchingly expected as normal in society.

i have no words, and so many, for this book. 

like his magnum opus The Hours, this is a novel that tugs at my soul and makes me feel present and really there, and experience the elegiac and the fierce chaos of life. if it has joys, which is possible, you will find it in the shadows cast by a flower pot on the windowsill or by taking a book in a park in a warm summer day of March, something as iridescent as that. Cunningham exposes his characters' deepest inclinations and their bottomless pain and despair. again, a huge pang of honest unsentimentality will lick your bones and you would grasp the concept of parallel lives with these characters that he's created.

this could very well be a universal truth about families of the world, of humanity, right in this novel. 

it shows you how bad and beautiful it can get. it shows you what and how life and living is. how difficult it is to wear the outfits of everday life and show people how you cannot collapse. it's funny, how the words we said to someone we most loved are aimed at hurting them, how the people we most loved are the same people prone to our misgiving and unforgiveness, and it's becoming pretty much the most basic human condition isn't it? it is regretable, but it happens. it happens. on some cases, we live to die, and not. some of us stay here to suffer, wait for a long life of, i dont know, just living and constantly outliving our mistakes and bending the past. but in the end, owning them. so that we have something to be proud of. the back seat of a car has become our most favorite place in the world, with a gin and tonic on our hand while a friend drives, drunk with alcohol and blinding reality. we hope to chase something and die there, call it a Car Ballet, but life would simply not permit us to. we have our futures ahead of us. we still have relationships to fail. because there is a daughter whose job it is to die, and not us. the beatnik, the crazy sibling in the family, who will get it as a sort of consolation. and what happens to us? we stay at the back seat of a parked car. we pass a joint, curse our fathers, get a hard-on, and make long exasperated exhalations on the windshield that say a lot about us. the tired breaths that hang like question marks in the air that will trail the shadows of our adult lives forever. we continue to live. 

and this is supposed to be a book review, right? i'm sorry. never mind my sentimental bullshit because the book is not at all like that.

having said that, it is the exact antithesis of ticklish. because this book is written by Michael Cunningham. and he doesn't demand respect for every word that he says because you will give it to him generously anyway, spontaneously. that's the magic. because he is never the one who impresses.

i would read this book the second time, third, and i would get that same feeling of a hot bubble resting and extending inside me, reaching through my fingertips and the strands of my hair, and i would call it, i dunno, electricity, or maybe inspired consciousness, and i'm going to ask myself relentlessy and hard: what have i been doing in my life?

(and i was there, reeling, with a Kleenex on a bedside table while holding this book.)

I can't think of much to say about this. It's a novel that won't essentially do Michael Cunningham's reputation as a novelist any harm or any good. The main characters in this three generational family saga interested me rather less than two of the minor characters - a drag queen called Cassandra and a big-hearted mixed-race kid called Jamal. There's a lot of soul searching (too much for me) and a lot of pretty writing but every day I was much more keen to read the Muriel Spark novel I had on the go. This, in comparison, felt like a chore. That said, it's pretty accomplished for a second novel.

Whew! What an amazing, meticulously described series of characters live in "Flesh and Blood" by Michael Cunningham. I mean they "live" in the sense that they will always be here in my copy of this book, even though many of them die within the pages. And for once at the end of the multigenerational story within, I feel no mourning for the characters because the author deals with the ending in such a thorough and satisfying way. Unfortunately, in the interests of not spoiling the plot, I can't reveal how he does so.

Also, the plot is no slouch! It's an event fantasmagorica! The happenings! The feelings about the happenings! The juxtaposition of ambivalent feelings about the happenings! I never knew what was going to happen around the next turning of the page! This is what I love!

The skeleton of the book is about the family created by Con (Constantine) and Mary which includes their three children Susan, Billy and Zoe. Later we get to know Susan and Zoe's children, one of whom becomes Billy's child through a series of events. However, it's chockfull of other important characters who become a sort of rag-tag family to each other. Major family clashes and alliances occur due to some inexcusable actions mainly by Con who is a bully, racist, etc. yet does manage to have redeeming qualities. No one in this book is one dimensional.

Each chapter in this three-part saga has a year as it's title: 1935, 1949, 1958 and so on until the last two: 1995, 2035. This enables the reader to keep track of how old everyone is as the storyline continues.

F & B begins in 1935 when Con is an 8 year old boy. We can immediately see where both his determination to succeed and his evil streak begin. He is molded by a cruel father who acts as his model for what a father is and does. Con desperately wants to please his father and to prove that he is worthy. At his tender age, he is determined to turn a dry scrap of throw-away turf into a garden.

And he was diligent. Every day he took his ration of water, drank half, and sprinkled half over his seeds. That was easy, but he needed better soil as well. The pants sewn by his mother had no pockets, and it would be impossible to steal handfuls of dirt from his father's garden and climb with them past the goat's shed and across the curving face of the rock without being detected. So he stole the only way he could, by bending over every evening at the end of the workday, as if tying down one last low vine, and filling his mouth with earth.

In 1968, Susan is a proper young lady in High School who wants to be prom queen. She is like a mini-me of her mom, Mary. Both of them are so tightly wound as they try to keep their surroundings, their looks and their futures within a tiny, acceptable box. By contrast, there is Marcia, the school floozy who could care less about reputations. She is also in contention for prom queen.

By being mean and sluttish, Marcia had taken herself to a realm where losing meant nothing because winning meant nothing.

Mary is starting to come unraveled by 1969 when she begins shop-lifting and taking Valium for breathlessness.

She'd stolen any number of little things, and always felt the same queasy satisfaction.

She finally asked her doctor if something might be wrong with her and was given a prescription for pale yellow pills.

Meanwhile, Con and his son Billy are in a constant battle or the verge of physical violence. Billy is smart, gay, an adrenaline junkie and unwilling to kowtow. Con is authoritative, demanding, thinks he's always right and deserving of respect for being the dad.

Constantine nodded. Every answer had to be smart, every movement had to mock and defy him. He knew that he loved his son-what sort of man doesn't?-but he wanted him to be different. He wanted, right now, to stand in this kitchen with his boy and talk to him about the world's elusive glory and its baffling, persistent disappointments. He wanted to wrestle with his son, to throw a football at him with all his strength.

But he couldn't really do that with his effeminate, cerebral son, now could he? Billy is much better aligned with his mom against Con who eventually get divorced. They are so incompatible. On the other hand, Mary gets along beautifully with Cassandra, a trans female. Their concerns and desires are quite similar.

1987, Mary This is what's happening. I live by myself in a five-bedroom house. My oldest daughter hardly speaks to me. My son loves other men. I'm trying to decide what to wear to lunch with the "godmother" of my younger grandson and I have no idea what to wear because I don't know what kind of place I'm going to and I've never had lunch with a man who wears dresses.

There's a lot of ambivalence of sentiment throughout which I feel is like real life. Sadness and happiness at the same time.

He cried, sometimes, from sorrow and a happiness he couldn't name.

Tears of joy, tears of sadness. It's all woven in this gorgeous book!

well i finally got to the swimming scene! there was a LOT going on in here but i loved the sweeping saga, the destructive desires…..

Michael Cunningham is getting be be a favorite writer of mine. So far I've read The Hours and A Home at the End of the World, both novels have been made into decent films.

Flesh and Blood deals with three generations of a Greek-American family. It starts in the 30's and ends around 1995. This family will remain in my thoughts for quite awhile. THe head of household, Constantine and Mary could have been my parents. So many of the references made me think of my own dysfunctional family.
This will ring true for anyone who has a distant father and a mother who had to pick up the slack. Issues of abuse, AIDES,incest, homosexuality, extended families,even drag queens get thrown into the mix.
With over 60 years of investment into the characters, you can't help but be moved when slowly but surely things beyond your control happen to them. My tears were flowing by the end. Worth a read.

Este é o terceiro livro que li de Michael Cunningham e é aquele de que mais gostei. Ainda não li o mais famoso livro dele - "As Horas", nem o último, que parece ser bastante fraco - "A Rainha da Neve".
"Sangue do meu Sangue" conta-nos a história de uma família americana (oriunda da emigração, como tantas outras), ao longo de três gerações: o pai e a mãe, primeiro, os seus três filhos depois, e finalmente os seus dois netos.
E nesta "viagem" através da última metade do século XX, vamos encontrar a maior parte dos problemas das famílias (não só americanas), com um enfoque bastante grande nas questões sexuais, principalmente a infidelidade e a homossexualidade.
As personagens estão muito bem definidas e mesmo aquelas que não pertencem à família surgem muito bem enquadradas.
Cunningham tem a percepção correcta do "american way of life" numa classe média e move-se bem em ambientes bastante diversos.
É curioso que no último, e pequeno capítulo, como que em jeito de resumo do que se passará após cessar a história, me fez relembrar muito toda a história daquela fabulosa série da HBO, "Six feet under"...

Текст - безумнівно божественний. Каннінгем пише дрібненькими яскравими мазками - читається легко, читається цікаво. По сюжету в фокусі у нас сімʼя Константіна і Мері. У них троє дітей і кожного, звісно, свої проблеми - здебільшого, глобальні і серйозні.

Але.

Попри мою підготовленість до текстів Каннінгема (а це останній, не читаний мною роман письменника, крім нового “Days” 2024 року), було важкувато абстрагуватись від сюжету і сприймати певні епізоди не буквально, а з думкою “що б це могло означати метафорично”. Бо буквально там іноді відбуваєтсья страшне, волосся ставало дибки. Людям, чутливим до сцен інцестуального характеру, читати, мабуть, не варто.

Prachtige familiegeschiedenis die in totaal vier generaties omvat, waarbij ik eerlijkheidshalve moet zeggen dat die vierde generatie er bekaaid vanaf komt, omdat het einde van dit boek helaas nogal afgeraffeld is. Daarvoor maken we kennis met Constantine, een Griekse jongen die met zijn familie in de VS woont, en later met zijn vrouw Mary, een Italiaanse in Amerika. We volgen het stel en hun drie kinderen in de loop van hun levens. Af en toe inclusief gruwelijke details, want Constantine is niet altijd de vader die hij misschien wel had willen zijn. Met onderwerpen als homoseksualiteit in het puriteinse Amerika in de jaren 70/80, gemengde huwelijken en de opkomst van Hiv/AIDS kiest dit boek toch al niet de makkelijkste weg, maar Cunningham schrijft er met veel flair een geweldig leesbaar verhaal van.