Gerhardt's Children — Jerrold Mundis

An extraordinary family saga about a fiercely German Catholic clan growing up in Midwestern America.Epic in scope and emotional appeal, it is a story of angry sons and rebellious daughters, hapless mates and lovers, trapped in hopeless entanglements of need and resentment; of a vibrantly alive young woman dying of cancer and an emotionally ravaged young man struggling to be reborn; of a plainly human hunger for love at the mercy iron traditions that bend only in madness."A superb novelist presents a book difficult to overpraise."-Publishers Weekly"Brilliant and absorbing...Mundis has created the living organism of an American family."-The Pittsburgh Press