Chorus
A Novel
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3.9 • 19 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
For readers of Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Claire Lombardo, Chorus shepherds seven siblings through two life-altering events—their mother's untimely death, and a shocking teenage pregnancy—that ultimately follow them through their lives as individuals and as a family
The seven Shaw siblings have long been haunted by two early and profoundly consequential events. Told in turns from the early twentieth century through the 1950s, each sibling relays their own version of the memories that surround both their mother’s mysterious death and the circumstances of one sister’s scandalous teenage pregnancy. As they move into adulthood, the siblings assume new roles: caretaker to their aging father, addict, enabler, academic, decorated veteran, widow, and mothers and fathers to the next generation.
Entangled in a family knot, the Shaw siblings face divorce, drama, and death while haunted by a mother who was never truly there. Through this lens, they all seek not only to understand how her death shaped their family, but also to illuminate the insoluble nature of the many familial experiences we all encounter—the concept of home, the tenacity that is a family’s love, and the unexpected ways through which healing can occur.
Chorus is a hopeful story of family, of loss and recovery, of complicated relationships forged between brothers and sisters as they move through life together, and of the unlikely forces that first drive them away and then ultimately back home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kauffman's luminous latest (after House on Fripp Island) showcases her knack for delving into the hearts of her characters. The Shaw family is altered forever after the mother, who took to her bed sometime after the birth of her seventh child, dies in 1933, the result of "mistaking sleeping pills for nervousness pills. So they said. Or the other way around," according to her two oldest children. In a seamless and sprawling narrative covering the early 20th century through the 1950s, Kauffman poignantly portrays all the Shaw family members, among them Wendy, the oldest, who falls into a caretaker role for her father after the rest of her siblings grow up and leave home; Jack, an alcoholic; Lane, pregnant at 15; and Bette, the youngest, whose husband dies in a freak accident when she is newly pregnant with their second child. Throughout, the author probes the ways the siblings are shaped by their mother's death, a possible suicide. The siblings' alliances, particularly that of Jack and Lane, are revealed via vibrant prose, as are family secrets such as the truth about Lane's pregnancy. It adds up to a superbly executed saga.
