Preview of A Southern Family Summary:

In 1987, while working on A Southern Family, Godwin wrote "All my protagonists . . . disguised by gender or species, occupation or social class or hardly disguised at all—are parts of myself." This novel, apparently written in response to a shattering event in Godwin's own family, has at least eight protagonists—and, if we believe Godwin's statement, each one is a part of its author. The central figure, Theo Quick, dies before page eighty of this six-hundred page book, after he has spoken for himself in only scattered bits of dialogue. The remaining seven major characters—Theo's half sister, Clare; his estranged wife, Snow; his brother, Rafe; his mother and father, Lily and Ralph; Clare's boyfriend, Felix; and her best friend, Julia—spend the rest of the book searching for keys to Theo, and, in doing so, they learn a great deal about themselves and reveal...