Overview

An aged trade embalmer discovers a new connection to life. As a husband, he promised his dying wife he'd write their story of love and grief, sweetness, sadness. Twenty-five years later, he may not have a first sentence for the story of their marriage but he does have the start of a loving final chapter of his own. If sex and the dead, as Yeats instructed, are topics worthy of a serious mind, then Doyle Shields has a very serious mind indeed. His professional work was preparing the dead for their funerals, while his passion was pleasing his beloved partners. First, there was monogamous joy with Sally and then, after years of bereavement, after giving up on love and its blessings, there was Johanna, whose lovemaking makes Doyle believe in a life of the spirit. Still, life, as Doyle learned as a young combat Marine, takes no prisoners. It comes and goes and goes on with or without our participation or approval. And Doyle, approaching his end, is haunted by the wounds of the war fought in his youth. Award-winning writer and poet Thomas Lynch has wrought a sprawling, enthralling first novel about the pursuit of meaning, purpose, redemption and forgiveness, and the search for beauty in an imperfect world. It is for any reader who believes such quests can end in splendid victory. As Doyle feels God whisper, ""Wait and see.""

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9781567927054

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Reviews

""For decades Thomas Lynch has shown himself to be a master both of poetry and non-fiction. Now he proves to be a master of prose fiction too and offers a first novel that's deep and focused and fine. The language shimmers: a wordsmith working at the top of his bent and giving a gift to us all."" --Nicholas Delbanco, author of Still Life at Eighty: A Memoir ""This unexpected novel from our greatest poet of myth and mortality is cause for celebration. Thomas Lynch never fails to startle and surprise us."" --Joan Baez, author of When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance

Author Information

Thomas Lynch is the author of six books of essays, a book of short fiction and six books of poetry. He was a National Book Award finalist for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade and is the recipient of the American Book Award, The Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, The Denise Levertov Award, The Great Lakes Book Award, and Michigan Authors Award. He has taught with the Candler School of Theology at Emory, the Graduate Program in Writing at Michigan, and Mortuary Science at Wayne State. He lives in Michigan, where he worked as a funeral director until his retirement, and in Ireland, where he keeps an ancestral home. No Prisoners is his first novel.

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