After uniform praise for Ruth Gilligan’s Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan, the Eason Book Club on The Pat Kenny Show is turning its focus to a promising new debut novel from American writer Matthew Griffin. A graduate of the celebrated creative writing workshop at the University of Iowa, Griffin has taught at a number of universities and has now produced his first published work, Hide.
Wendell Wilson, a taxidermist, and Frank Clifton, a veteran, meet after the Second World War. But, in a declining textile town in a southern US state, their love holds real danger.
Severing nearly all ties with the rest of the world, they carve out a home for themselves on the outskirts of town. For decades, their routine of self-reliant domesticity - Wendell's cooking, Frank's care for a yard no one sees, and the vicarious drama of courtroom TV - seems to protect them.
But when Wendell finds Frank lying motionless outside at the age of eighty-three, their carefully crafted life together begins to unravel. As Frank's memory and physical strength deteriorate, Wendell struggles in vain to hold on to the man he once knew. Faced with giving care beyond his capacity, he must come to terms with the consequences of half a century in seclusion: the different lives they might have lived - and the impending, inexorable loss of the one they had.
The Eason Book Club will take place live on air on Thursday, August 25th, so find a copy of Hide and get reading. You can listen back to last month’s club segment in the podcast below:
