Forebears

When Jay Harding is given his grandmother June's diary after her death he discovers a vivid picture depicting one Englishwoman's life from childhood during the dark times of wartime Britain up to the present day. But he's already learned dark secrets. Prior to her passing his grandmother had told him the story of her forebears beginning in the early optimistic years of the twentieth century, before the world was torn apart by the cataclysm of the first terrible 'war to end all wars.' That account gave testimony to shocking abuse, institutional cruelty and tragedy. Now he reads on … As Jay journeys through the rich tapestry of his family history we find that in many ways it's the reader's own. For every family has a story to be told. Intertwined threads of earlier lives influence who we become. Jay sees his ancestors' histories in handwritten pages yellowed with age; in sepia and black-and-white pictures dulled by time; in a poignant remembrance of lost love in a silver frame; has heard it told in his grandmother's voice, tremulous in her decline. In exploring his forebears' histories, Jay finds the rich echoes of the past resonating with his love-blessed present, inspiring him to meet the future.Several themes run in parallel through this rich novel: the repercussions of sexual abuse, the continuum of female sexual reproduction, the woman's view of fighting wars and running the world and the changing social mores throughout the twentieth century. It is a compelling social and family history; that of so many families of the last one-hundred-and-five years.