Affliction

<p><strong>Banks has taken on a profound theme the ruinous and awful affliction of violence that seems to live like a secret blood-disease handed down in men like Wade. . . . He turns it into a living art that can bring recognition and awe. --<em> Los Angeles Book Review</em></strong></p><p><strong>A masterwork of contemporary American fiction (<em>Chicago Tribune</em>) from one of the most acclaimed and important writers of our time</strong></p><p>Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat a loner with a mean streak. It is a mark of Russell Banks's artistry and understanding that Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition. Told by his articulate equally scarred younger brother Wade's story becomes as spellbinding and inexorable as a fuse burning its way to the dynamite.</p>