Preview of Very Old Bones Summary:

Very Old Bones continues the saga of the Irish-American Phelan and Quinn families that runs through Ironweed (1983), Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (1978), and Quinn's Book (1988).

Unlike those earlier novels, Very Old Bones de-emphasizes Albany as spiritual and historical place and focusses instead on the genetic, psychological, and family forces that shape character and thus fate in three generations of these families. "We are never without the overcoats, however lice-ridden, of...