Wake of Forgiveness - Paperback

by Bruce Machart (Author)

Reminiscent of Kent Haruf and Cormac McCarthy, Bruce Machart's debut novel is a dark family saga set in the American Southwest.

On a moonless Texas night in 1895, an ambitious young landowner suffers the loss of "the only woman he's ever been fond of" when his wife dies during childbirth with the couple's fourth son, Karel. The boy is forever haunted by thoughts of the mother he never knew, by the bloodshot blame in his father's eyes, and permanently marked by the yoke he and his brothers are forced to wear to plow the family fields. From an early age, Karel proves so talented on horseback that his father enlists him to ride in acreage-staked horseraces against his neighbors. In the winter of 1910, Karel rides in the ultimate high-stakes race against a powerful Spanish patriarch and his alluring daughters: hanging in the balance are his father's fortune, his brothers' futures, and his own fate.

Front Jacket

On a moonless Texas night in 1895, an ambitious young landowner suffers the loss of the only woman he s ever been fond of when his wife dies while giving birth to the couple s fourth boy, Karel. From an early age, Karel proves so talented on horseback that his father enlists him to ride in acreage-staked races against his neighbors. But Karel is forever haunted by thoughts of the mother he never knew and the bloodshot blame in his father s eyes, and permanently marked by the yoke he and his brothers are forced to wear to plow the family fields. Confident only in the saddle, Karel is certain that the horse wants the whip the same way he wants his pop s strap . . . the closest he ever gets to his father s touch.
In the winter of 1910, Karel rides in the ultimate high-stakes race against a powerful Spanish patriarch and his alluring daughters. Hanging in the balance are his father s fortune, his brother s futures, and his own fate. Fourteen years later, with the stake of the race still driven hard between him and his brothers, Karel is finally forced to dress the wounds of his past and salvage the tattered fabric of his family.
Reminiscent of Kent Haruf s portrayals of hope amidst human heartbreak and Cormac McCarthy s finely hewn evocations of the American Southwest, Bruce Machart s striking debut is as well wrought as it is riveting. It compels us to consider the inescapable connections between sons and their mothers, between landscape and family, and between remembrance and redemption.
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Back Jacket

The prose is polished and evocative, the physicality of rural Texas in the year 1910 shimmers with loving exactitude, and the story of Karel Skala is a gripping American drama of misplaced guilt, familial struggle, and a search for identity. What a fine, rich, absorbing book. Tim O Brien, author of The Things They Carried
In his richly told novel, The Wake of Forgiveness, Bruce Machart tells a story of fathers and sons that stretches wide across the Texas landscape, leaving behind its own beautiful wake of remembrance, inheritance, and the unbreakable bonds of family. Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief
If Evan S. Connell, William Faulkner, and Norman Maclean had been born as one person, he might possess the extraordinary gifts of Bruce Machart. The Wake of Forgiveness is a wild, God-forsaken cry delivered in language so lush we cannot stop listening. The dazzling velocity of Machart s prose bears a tale redemptive and resonant as myth, insistent and intimate as breath in the body. Melanie Rae Thon, author of Sweet Hearts
Machart s moving story unfolds lyrically and sensually, with little fanfare, as his thoughtful prose propels a character-driven story about family, morality, and redemption. Publishers Weekly, starred review"