From the Dust Returned - by Ray Bradbury (Paperback)

About the Book

The first new novel from Bradbury in more than 10 years--and the recipient of the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters--features the supernatural Elliot family. Outlandish, great-hearted, and loving-spirited, the Elliots are vampires, but their son is born with a defect--he's human.

Book Synopsis

A landmark publishing event--a bestselling, award-winning master of American literature offers a long-anticipated new novel featuring one of his most beloved creations, the Elliott family

A lifelong labor of love 55 years in the making, From the Dust Returned is the long awaited full-length tale featuring Ray Bradbury's popular Elliotts: a novel comprised of six previously published and other never-before-seen stories about an outlandish, greathearted, and loving-spirited Halloween creature clan and their "abnormal" (he can see his reflection in the mirror!) adopted son Timothy.

Meet Cecy, "the one who dreams," a young girl who experiences the world only through the travels of her mind; Uncle Einar, a fun-loving vampire who loses his ability to fly; and Tom, a farm boy whom Cecy "meets" and falls in love with during one of her spirit-borne journeys.

Touching, wistful, and graced with his trademark wit, From the Dust Returned embodies the powerful vision and imagination of one of the world's great literary icons, Ray Bradbury.

A great read for spooky-season nightsA perfect addition to any Halloween reading list

From the Back Cover

Ray Bradbury, America's most beloved storyteller, has spent a lifetime carrying readers to exhilarating and dangerous places, from dark street comers in unfamiliar cities and towns to the edge of the universe. Now, in an extraordinary flight of the imagination a half-century in the making, he takes us to a most wondrous destination: into the heart of an Eternal Family.

They have lived for centuries in a house of legend and mystery in upper Illinois -- and they are not like other midwesterners. Rarely encountered in daylight hours, their children are curious and wild; their old ones have survived since before the Sphinx first sank its paws deep in Egyptian sands. And some sleep in beds with lids.

Now the house is being readied in anticipation of the gala homecoming that will gather together the farflung branches of this odd and remarkable family. In the past-midnight stillness can be detected the soft fluttering of Uncle Einars wings. From her realm of sleep, Cecy, the fairest and most special daughter, can feel the approach of many a welcome being -- shapeshifter, telepath, somnambulist, vampire -- as she flies high in the consciousness of bird and bat.

But in the midst of eager anticipation, a sense of doom pervades. For the world is changing. And death, no stranger, will always shadow this most singular family: Father, arisen from the Earth; Mother, who never sleeps but dreams; A Thousand Times Great Grandmére; Grandfather, who keeps the wildness of youth between his ears.

And the boy who, more than anyone, carries the burden of time on his shoulders: Timothy, the sad and different foundling son who must share it all, remember, and tell...and who, alone out of all of them, must one day age and wither and die.

By turns lyrical, wistful, poignant, and chilling, From the Dust Returned is the long-awaited new novel by the peerless Ray Bradbury -- a book that will surely be numbered among his most enduring masterworks.