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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780738815923
ISBN number: 0738815926
Label: Xlibris Corporation
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 416
Printing Date: June 07, 2000
Publishing house: Xlibris Corporation
Sale Popularity Level: 6686128
Studio: Xlibris Corporation
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
From Michigan sand dunes to Colorado hogbacks, this award-winning novel follows a man's flight from his troubled past to a place where shame, faith and integrity converge. Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Finalist
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Rated by buyers 
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"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." --Oscar Wilde, Preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
Dave Cheadle's FAMILY ASHES is well written. This is a finely crafted novel about time and its relationship to love, ethics, and the human condition.
This is the story of a middle-aged man who begins to look at his life and to see how the past inevitably colors the present. There is a rhythmic, musical structure to this novel. Time bends. The past interrupts the present. The past threatens to repeat itself in the future. The narrative begins in the mid-seventies and then delivers the reader to a setting twenty years into the future. Throughout the novel, the reader travels back and forth in time. In the process, the reader encounters not only someone else's past but also recognizes the role the past plays is one's own life.
The main character has managed to wear a mask, to hide the past. But something happens. One day he wakes up, begins to question his life, his marriage, his values, and even his desires. What motivates such an awakening? As he states to his wife near the end of the story, "Let's just say that this past week has included a conspiracy of coincidences that have knocked me out of my otherwise predictable orbit" (page 264).
The "conspiracy of coincidences" is just one of the many pleasures of this book. A pattern emerges. The past is a main character in this novel, and the protagonist must reckon with this formidable presence. In the end, the reader--as well as the main character--is knocked out of her otherwise predictable orbit.
Rated by buyers 
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"I think that you're right," he said. "The way that I feel sometimes about my life and who I am, it's just riddled with frustration, rage, and self-hatred. Sometimes all I want to do is escape from it all. Escape in work, escape through bossing people around, escape in fantasies."
This statement from Family Ashes by Dave Cheadle gives a glimpse into the tension this novel embraces. Maybe an answer to many men's prayers, here's an honest, authentic, unsentimental portrayal of one man's struggles, dealt with in light of the Biblical view of human nature.
Family Ashes knits together clever description, fresh language, and an interesting plot. Protagonist Jade Vanderspyke must disentangle himself from his current dilemmas by examining his upbringing and experiences.
Fine characterization and sharp dialogue engross the reader. Splashes of humor, gritty emotion, philosophical wrestling, plus thematic overtures including: recognize your weaknesses; share your struggles; and live with some ambiguity; enrich the work.
Though there may be some crude, possibly objectionable sections, Cheadle anticipates them within the work. "If I can't use certain words, then I don't think that I can really say what I need to say," says Jade. At points the book has the atmosphere of a football locker room. Yet it also has the mystery of an undefeated season because in the midst of the strife, the work succeeds.
A cohesive, well-built novel, Family Ashes grapples with the dilemma of Romans 7:15. "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate." This is an artful statement about uncovering sin and then overcoming it with the heart of Christ.
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