A Broken Thing

Author Dabney Stuart best summarizes this debut novel ''as relentless as Euripides, or Faulkner, whose 'As I Lay Dying' is its formal model. Its central preoccupation is the sins (or in more secular terms, 'behavior patterns') of fathers and mothers passing into the lives of their offspring. It also reminds us how many people, living and dead, ghost our daily experience, complication and enriching our choices. Barton includes the dimension of mercy, too---the mutual forgiveness of failures by family members who, finally, find ways to realize they can't live without each other. An impressive, uncompromising book.''