Cain's Version

by Frank Durham

Lindy Caton, middle-aged, attractive and recently divorced, accepts a position as Director of the Moulton Foundation in small-town Louisiana to be closer to her aging father. While building her new life, she encounters and assumes care of three elderly, eccentric women living in subsistence. As her relationship with them grows, she discovers the extraordinary secret of their past that sweeps her into the dramatic return of an itinerant son seeking to reconcile with his mother over an ancient act of cruelty.

2008 ForeWord Book of the Year Finalist for Literary Fiction

300 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2008

Reviews

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderful first novel, this by a man finished with his academic career at Tulane University only to write this remarkable story. The Book of Genesis's Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel are the central characters of this story. Eve, as old as the world, has never forgiven her son Cain for causing her favorite son Abel's death. He, bereft of his mother's forgiveness, wanders the world, seeking her. She lives in a run down shack at the end of a dirt road in Louisiana, visited by a youngish woman who works for a non-profit and can't shake off the pull of her husband, a bisexual, who she divorced some time ago. Their lives intertwine, not perfectly, but remarkably.

I know, it sounds implausible, but it's quite beautiful and haunting. Took me a while to get into, but I read through most of it today, and enjoyed it.

[Lydia Presley · Rating 1 out of 5]

It might just be that I wasn't in the mood, but the story was just too odd and weird to follow for me.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was somewhat like being hypnotized - I was carried along even though I didn't really want to go.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found the conceit to be well done. It was a shame that this is his only published work.