The Cradle: A Novel

From Strand Bookstore

Matthew Bishop is searching for his wife's mother--the same mother who abandoned Marisa and refused to ever contact her again. The couple, now pregnant, are looking for the cradle Marisa slept in as a baby, and Matt assumes that tracking her down will be an easy job. He quickly discovers how wrong he is. After leaving her child, the mother's life spiralled out of control, and she's left a mysterious path that drags Matt out of Wisconsin to Minnesota, Illinois, and beyond in search of his wife's legacy. Along the way he makes a haunting discovery, one which will change Marisa forever and challenge the way the couple sees the world--and each other. An intriguing debut novel from Patrick Somerville.

From the Publisher

Ten years after a the imminent birth of a couple's first child is marked by the expectant mom's desire to reclaim an antique cradle from the mother who abandoned her years earlier, a middle-aged couple worries about their son's imminent stationing in Iraq; a situation that reminds the young soldier's mother about her first love.

Review

Mary Houlihan - Chicago Sun-Times
"[THE CRADLE is] a magical debut novel executed with grace and precision; there's not a wasted word in it....Somerville...has an uncanny knack for capturing the underlying hopes, dreams and conflicts that arise when a man is facing the birth of his first child."

Review

Donna Seaman - Booklist
"With highly charged lyricism and dramatic concision, Somerville gracefully illuminates what children need, all that war demands, and how amends are made and sorrows are woven into the tapestries of life."

Review

Janet Maslin - New York Times
"[This] magical debut novel....with unexpectedly wide range...mixes the profound emotional pull of parent-child connections with comically eccentric touches."

Review

Dean Bakopoulos - New York Times Book Review
"The scope of the story indicates that many hours of imaginative sweat went into the production of this lean, moving tale. Happily, THE CRADLE emerges swift and cinematic, an epic story told in a series of artfully curated, wonderfully rendered scenes."

More about the book

Matthew Bishop's pregnant wife sends him on a mission to find the antique cradle that rocked her as a babe, now in the possession of her estranged mother. Matthew tracks the cradle across several state lines, pursuing clues and learning more about his wife's family than he ever wanted to know. Ten years later, another couple, the Owens, endures an awkward and agonizing last week with their teenage son before he ships out to Iraq. Debut novelist Patrick Somerville gracefully and elegantly blends the two seemingly disparate narratives into a stunning final revelation that touches on the importance and essence of family.