A Life Without Grace: A Novel

by John M. McNamara

A Life Without Grace dissects a tense few days in the life of Grayson Eilers, a successful baby-boomer. Grayson, a freelance speechwriter, receives an urgent message from his sister that their mother has suffered a severe heart attack. She is alive, but her condition remains critical. For more than three decades, Grayson has compartmentalized his life, distancing himself physically and emotionally from the modest origins that his mother, his sister and his two brothers represent, while dedicating himself to his new his wife and two children. After a terse conversation with his sister, Grayson, feeling angry and helpless, accepts the returning to Omaha to confront family members with whom he has never shared any commonality. He arrives in Omaha on the eve of a spring snowstorm that delays the arrival of his wife and his two children, leaving Grayson isolated to cope with the cascade of both predictable and unexpected emotions inherent in his stressful reunion with his estranged family.

380 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 2010

About the author

John M. McNamara’s short fiction has been published in Crosscurrents, Old Hickory Review, the Piedmont Literary Review, the Minotaur, Snapdragon, Four Quarters, FlashFiction, Quick Fiction, Bear River Review and Inside Running.

In the summer of 1999, he was awarded a professional artist residency at the OxBow Summer Arts Program for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Saugatuck, Michigan. He lives in Downers Grove, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, with his wife.

He is the author of the novels A Life Without Grace; A Final Reflection; Hunter’s War, A Novella, and Selected Short Stories; Harmony House; Madonna; The Dreams of Teddy Schreck; The Unabridged Songwriter; and Summers on the Nebraska Shore. all available from Amazon.com.

Reviews

[John M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent novel...very graphic descriptions and character development.

[Cynthia Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Life without Grace focuses on the seemingly perfect world of Grayson Eilers, a man with an adoring wife and two grown children, whose life is suddenly hijacked by the past when his estranged mother suffers a massive heart attack. With his wife and children out of town, Grayson is forced by a dormant sense of duty to fly to Omaha, a town he turned his back on decades ago, along with his parents and siblings. In returning to his childhood home, he relinquishes the trappings that define him as an adult, husband and father, and flies headlong into a family feud that started when he was a boy.

The life Grayson has forged for himself and his own family is of no consequence once he encounters his sister and two brothers at their mother's bedside. All the animosity flares anew, forcing adult siblings to square off using barriers that were erected so long ago, they stand solely on stubborn grudges, most incited by the family matriarch. Now rendered helpless by her struggle to survive, Grace can no longer pit one child against the other. Without her playing off the weaknesses and sympathies of her children, they each examine their roles in the rift that has kept them from being united as a family and kept Grayson apart - bitter, betrayed and distant.

John McNamara possesses a remarkable gift for writing. The characters he creates are so real, it's as if you're watching the story unfold right before your eyes, with the added benefit of reading Grayson's thoughts and emotions to understand the complexities of his relationship with the others. The subtle beauty of this book is its ability to lay common familial dramas bare, giving the reader insights into what makes us all tick, and how time can cement groundless accusations into walls strong enough to destroy the connections of birth. The author systematically peels off layer upon layer to get to the hearts of all the members of this family, so "normal" on the outside and so complex under the surface.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book on LT and I liked it a lot. It says on the cover fiction, but you can't help to wonder if it is semiautobiographical. It is well written & the author is very descriptive. The characters are great and the tension between the siblings is phenomenal. This was a very quick read and I highly recommend this book.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved it.

[Keaton Griffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The dullest book I've ever tried to read. Couldn't even finish it.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

BO-RING.