Fault Lines

Sol is a gifted, but also terrifying, 6-year-old. His mother believes he is destined for greatness. He has a birthmark, like his dad, his grandmother and great-grandmother. But when they all make an unexpected trip to Germany, terrible secrets emerge about their family's story during World War II. Perhaps birthmarks are not all that has been passed down through this family. With its domestic focus but epic scope, Fault Lines is a compelling, touching and often funny novel about four generations of children and their parents. From California to New York, from Haifa to Toronto and Munich, the secrets unwind back through time, the present haunted by the past, until the devastating truth is reached.

About the Author :
Nancy Huston is a prize-winning author in both her native Canada and in France, where she has resided since 1973. She is the author of seven novels and numerous works of non-fiction. Born in Calgary, Alberta in 1953, she moved to New Hampshire when she was fifteen and was attending Sarah Lawrence College when she travelled to Paris for a year of study. She never left. Huston lives in Paris with her husband, Tzvetan Todorov, a philosopher and writer originally from Bulgaria, and their two children. Edwina Wren is an Australian actress and voice-over artist who has appeared on the television series Neighbours and in the films Canopy and Macbeth. She is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. Wren is the award-winning narrator of works such as Geraldine Brooks’s New York Times bestselling audiobook People of the Book and The Glass House by Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion. She has narrated nearly 100 audiobooks.

Review :
"Huston's powerful novel combines the pacing of a thriller with the emotional intricacies that are the hallmark of the best family stories." "Explosive in its control and its ambition." "An immaculate novel." "Combines the psychological tension of a thriller with sweeping literary brilliance." "Savour it: you'll regret it if you don't" "Nancy Huston is a brilliant, lyrical, unforgettable writer." "Fault Lines is haunted by the upheavals of the twentieth century. Reading this brilliant novel, you are deeply moved." "Huston's brilliance is in how she gradually lets the reader in on the secret and draws out the revelation so carefully that by the time the reader arrives at the heart of the matter in Munich 1944, the discovery hits with blunt force. Huston masterfully links the 20th century's misery to 21st-century discomfort in razor-sharp portraits of children as they lose their innocence." "This novel, the winner of the 2006 Prix Femina (a French literary prize), is structured as a reverse recitation (starting in 2004 and going back to WWII) of four generations of hidden family secrets as relayed in slice-of-life sections by youngsters. Wren’s voice fluidly morphs from male to female, and through time shifts and varied accents, she relays feelings of innocence edged with the unflinching honesty of youth, expertly matching the saga’s deep emotional pull. Wren channels the creepy malevolence of young Sol, a coddled Californian, whose online obsession with sex and violence is disturbingly at odds with his childhood fears concerning a botched surgery and the repressed unease of a family reunion. Sol’s father, Randall, recounts his New York and Israeli boyhood in the 1980s, and Wren’s voice is colored with tones of deep familial affection and humor, tinged with the tremulous hesitation of unfulfilled affection. Wren’s voicing of grandmother Sadie’s Canadian youth in 1962 reveals the raw pain of abandonment as much by careful silence and audible breaths as by suppressed tones of anger and heartrending emotion. Wren masterfully communicates the brutality, terror, and resolute survival of great-grandmother Erra’s childhood in Germany during WWII, events that hold the key to the familial fault lines, which expose the horror of the Holocaust. Each voice rings absolutely true, whether luminous with the description of Erra’s musical talent or dark with revulsion and betrayal. An extraordinarily moving listening experience." "Gifted narrator Edwina Wren deftly juggles a handful of challenging accents and a clever plot in this story of four generations of brilliant and troubled characters. Novelist Nancy Huston’s twelfth novel is told through the eyes of four children and proceeds backward from 2004 to 1944. Wren portrays each character with sensitivity and allows a tone of wonder and innocence to color her voice as she moves through the four sections of the story. The unusual structure of the book and the slow-building tension make the final revelation both startling and shocking as each of the children experiences a loss of innocence. FAULT LINES gives listeners a glimpse of the many absurdities and wonders of life." "Narrated by four children from different generations of the same family, this tale of a present haunted by the past won the "Prix Femina" 2006. Reminiscent of Nicole Krauss's "The History Of Love", it will also appeal to fans of Lionel Shriver, Helen Dunmore and Linda Grant. It was also longlisted for the Orange Prize."