The Ties That Bind (A Family Saga)

by Robert Lamb

Overview

Robert Lamb is back with his latest novel, and he takes readers to the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, and to the shores of Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Ben Blake, a writer-in-residence at a Southern university, is summoned to Atlanta by the emotional breakdown of his son Charles, an architect with no history of mental illness, but whose mother killed herself when he was fifteen. Ben agrees to help Charles's psychiatrist reconstruct her new patient's history; Charles has remained silent. But when it is revealed that Charles has furtively planned to enter the Catholic priesthood, Ben, who is not reli- gious, feels bereft: He has not only lost his wife, but will he now lose his son, an only child, and the prospect of grandchildren, too? In other words, Ben will be working against his own self-interests. What to do? What to do? What would you do?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798989766024
Publisher:	MAS Communications & Red Letter Press
Publication date:	12/16/2023
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Robert Lamb was born in Aiken, South Carolina, grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and now lives in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia. He taught at Clemson University and the University of South Carolina after a journalism career that began at the Augusta, Georgia, Chronicle-Herald and last at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Now retired, he lives in Pawleys Island with his wife Margaret and their two dogs, Wyatt and Jackson. "The Ties That Bind (A Family Saga)" is his latest novel. His first novel, "Striking Out," was nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His other novels include "And Tell Tchaikovsky the News," "Atlanta Blues" and "A Majority of One." Also published is his book of short stories and poems, "Six of One, Half Dozen of Another." (“R.I.P,” one of those short stories, was a winner in the 2009 South Carolina Fiction Project.) He has more short stories to be published soon.

Editorial Reviews

Robert Lamb is back – and so is Ben Blake in another compelling story. Lamb's novels have always tip-toed around fiction and what might be autobiographical. I have a feeling that The Ties That Bind (A Family Saga) will further blur those lines, and that's just fine by me. This is Southern literature at its finest.
– Mark A. Stevens,
author of The Clinchfield No. 1: Tennessee's Legendary Steam Engine and Welcome to Erwin: Where the Mayor's Name is Bubba and Main Street's a Dead End

Author - Mark Stevens

There is an old saying familiar to most all of us: "You can't choose your family." In 21st-century vernacular, we know this meaning applies only to those individuals directly connected to us via DNA, and in Robert Lamb's engaging new novel - The Ties That Bind (A Family Saga) - he delivers the goods with an honest, unwavering look at just what it means to be bound by blood. Lamb's latest is a great read!
-- Clem Stambaugh, author of In Black and Light and The Ghosts of Gold

Author - Clem Stambaugh

The Ties That Bind (A Family Saga) is the latest example of how Robert Lamb, one of the South's great storytellers, plumbs the depths of human relationships and yields some
universal truths.
– Henry Eason,
author of Into the Pacific Fog and Good Man to Know

Author - Henry Eason

A story inside a story, Robert Lamb's The Ties That Bind (A Family Saga) is the best of Pat Conroy and Sam Shepherd rolled into one. It is also a haunting reminder that Faulkner was right about the past. It is not only not dead, but its legacies, good and bad, flit all around us.
– Mark A. Bradley,
author of Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America

Author - Mark Bradley