Cloud Chamber - by Michael Dorris (Paperback)

About the Book

The bestselling saga of an American family--from its roots in late 19th-century Ireland to its accommodations to life in contemporary America--"Cloud Chamber" presents four unique narrative voices which reveal the repressed passion, stubborn determination, and sustaining love one generation passes on to the next. "A lusty and elaborate multigenerational novel".--"Chicago Sun-Times".

Book Synopsis

Ten years after his "dazzling" (San Francisco Chronicle) bestselling debut novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Michael Dorris returns to the family at the core of that work to write the rich score of the "full-blown, complex opera of his new novel, Cloud Chamber" (Robb Forman Dew).

Opening in late nineteenth century Ireland and moving to Kentucky and finally to the high plains of Montana, Cloud Chamber tells the extraordinary tale of Rose Mannion and her descendants. Over a period of more than one hundred years, Rose's legacy of love and betrayal is passed down from generation to generation until it meets the promise of reconciliation in Rayona, the indomitable part Black, part Native American teenage girl at the center of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.

Cloud Chamber is truly a tour de force, a powerful, rich tale about the energy and persistence of love.

Review Quotes

Anne Lamott Cloud Chamber is Michael Dorris at his very best: poignant, heartbreaking, funny, lyrical, honest, smart and compassionate.

Oscar Hijuelos Like its very title, Cloud Chamber is a novel that enwraps the reader in a kind of prose-induced dream; it is a beautiful and luminous book, with a narrative that not only steadily entertains, but that continually enlightens and rewards.

Ursula Hegi The range of Michael Dorris's vision has always been impressive. His fiction is imaginative and perceptive, filled with wisdom and sensitivity. Cloud Chamber is an absorbing and insightful novel about courage, love, perseverance and -- above all -- the complex choices we all make without realizing how they will affect future generations.

About the Author

Michael Dorris (1945-1997) was the author of Cloud Chamber, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, The Crown of Columbus, coauthored with Louise Erdrich, and the story collection Working Men. Among his nonfiction works are The Broken Cord, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a collection of essays, Paper Trail.