All The Dead Yale Men: A Novel

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Originally published in 1982 to wide acclaim, The Good Son remains Craig Nova's undisputed masterpiece. This classic explored the complicated entanglements of fathers and sons --expressed in the story of nouvue-riche father Pop Mackinnon, who used his wealth to manipulate his son Chip into the 'right' kind of marriage upon the young man's return from World War II. Chip eventually gave up the love of his life and married to secure his future -- and what were the consequences of that decision All the Dead Yale Men answers that question in telling the story of Frank Mackinnon, son of Chip, a prosecutor in Boston with a happy marriage and a daughter set to follow his footsteps into law school. Chip's death throws Frank into his family's legacy, where he must contend with the inheritance of the Mackinnon's beloved land and a bevy of secrets that dates back three generations. And when Frank's daughter Pia falls under the sway of local bad boy Aurlon Miller, his grief over his father's death triggers the family legacy of social standing and manipulation to begin anew, leading Frank to the darkest edges of what a father will do to protect the ones he loves. All the Dead Yale Men examines the end of an era, how privilege and inheritance often crumble in the face of the modern world, a story enriched by the setting and mythology of Boston and its surroundings. The novel not only moves the Mackinnon's story forward but will recast historical elements of the classic novel as well, heralding the arrival of a new American classic.

Reviews

Praise for All the Dead Yale Men: "Nova's career-defining 1982 novel The Good Son explored the relationship between a domineering, social-climbing father, Pop Mackinnon, and his loyal but restless son Chip, a World War II veteran who returns home to an arranged marriage. This equally impressive sequel follows Chip's son Frank, now happily married and a Boston prosecutor, after his father's death by stroke unleashes long-buried family secrets and resentments... Nova's scenic evocation of Boston is spot-on, as is his emotional detailing of the fragile intricacies of family." --Publishers Weekly (Starred and Boxed) "'Long-awaited' is an overused phrase in publishers' promotional blurbs, but Nova's follow-up to his acclaimed 1982 novel The Good Son merits that description as much as any recent fiction, and it has been well worth the lengthy wait. Nova now brings forward more than one full generation his account of the Mackinnon family...[their] roots are in a richly described Delaware Valley, but this dark saga is also set in a seamy New England familiar to readers of George V. Higgins' classic The Friends of Eddie Coyle or Geoffrey Wolff's Providence. It is told with comparable verve, wit, horror, and beauty--even when vulgar, even repellent--and with images and set pieces that will haunt the reader long after they've put the book down. This gripping and intelligent chronicle of love, legacy, and betrayal (the title may suggest a genre mystery, which this surely isn't) captures a complex clan entangled in a questionable moral universe. Nova's Mackinnons, both here and in The Good Son, leave their edgy mark on the modern American literary landscape." --Booklist (Starred) "A great novel by one of our great novelists. A pleasure on every page." --Dennis Lehane "All the Dead Yale Men is morally complex, expertly observed, and quietly daring, the kind of novel that surprises you not by swerving but by deepening. Each time you think you understand the story of Frank Mackinnon's life, some new space spreads open at its center, like rings rippling out of each other in a puddle." --Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead "Nova is a master of distressed psychological spaces: A chess match between Frank and "The Wizard," a small-time punk who is courting Frank's daughter--much to Frank's extreme displeasure--is more thrilling than most car chases or shootouts. "Emotional explosions have their own revelations," Nova writes, "Which aren't so obvious when you are flying through the air in the power of the first blast." It would be wise to block out the time to read this in one sitting." --The Daily Beast "The Good Son was a wonderful meditation on ambitions, love, and parenthood. All the Dead Yale Men takes up those themes at the beginning of the new century, when it's as hard as it has ever been to be father... Nova is especially adept at drawing dark characters, and having their darkness creep up and catch you by surprise. He creates a vivid portrait of well-off New England and the Delaware River Valley, with often-moving descriptions of the natural world. Then Nova fills these backdrops with seemingly normal and successful people who become, from one moment to the next, desperate, manipulative and self-destructive...fans of The Good Son will enjoy seeing the Mackinnon family's obsessions play out in the noir landscape of the early 21st century." --The Los Angeles Times "There's a genuinely classical grandeur to Nova's tales of erotic derailment and titanic family conflict. There's also a sense of life as an absurdist pageant, where the ridiculous is so closely linked to the deadly serious that they seem like two facets of the same thing... In Nova's world, nature -- like this novel -- is a real piece of work." --The Seattle Times "The story is equally as tense as The Good Son. It reads almost like a thriller but with more depth and insight about family relationships, duty, and yes, obligations to deeply flawed parents...Both [books] are written oh, so wonderfully well." --Greensboro News & Record Praise for The Constant Heart: "Superb in prose and its evocations of character and nature, The Constant Heart is a wonderful novel by a writer whose range continues to dazzle me. As a writer, I marveled at the pure scope of Nova's gifts as a storyteller. As a reader, I simply enjoyed my ride through the emotional heart of this affecting novel." --Oscar Hijuelos "...An evocative family yarn...Nova has again produced expertly drawn characters and carefully measured, suspenseful prose with some surprises, all with undertones orbiting around Einstein's cosmological constant theory of relativity." --Publishers Weekly (Starred) "[A] meditative, philosophical, and beautifully realized novel about the nature of embattled American manhood. Both Jake and his father are deeply sympathetic characters, and Nova celebrates perhaps most fundamentally here the compassionate and honorable way they treat the women in their lives...discussions of Einstein's theory of relativity are interspersed throughout the novel, providing a fascinating thematic element related to the search for something constant in a world defined by change and instability. This is a novel of deep maturity and thoughtfulness." --Library Journal Praise for Craig Nova: "Nova is one of the best American novelists... [his] fiction has characters great, outward bravery and of heartbreaking inner need... [The Good Son] is not only Mr. Nova's best novel; it is the richest and most expert novel in my recent reading by any writer now under 40." --John Irving, The New York Times Book Review "Nova is one of the most distinctive voices and visionaries in American fiction... (his) territory is all his own... he's both audacious and authoritative..." --Ann Beattie "Nova genuinely relishes what life has to offer...one of the finest novels of our time..." --William Boyd "Marvelous writing...marvelous reading" --E.Annie Proulx "...a long, lingering pleasure" --Tracy Kidder "...savvy, accomplished, delightful" --Oscar Hijuelos "Craig Nova is a fine writer, one of our best. If you haven't read him, the loss is yours." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "[Nova's fiction] is so powerful, so alive, it is a wonder that turning its pages doesn't somehow burn one's hands." --The New York Times "An exquisitely delineated battle between father and son ... The structure and language of this novel are almost without fault." --John Irving, New York Times Book Review "[A] spine-chilling journey ... moves with breakneck speed. Written with clarity and vivid detail, the book is troubling but poignant-burrowing into that shadowy, universal fear of uncertainty and malice. The book haunts, lingering in the mind long after the last page." --Baltimore Sun "Dynamite ... Like Graham Greene or Albert Camus." --Denver Post "Made me hold my breath. It's so intense, it blew me away. Sentence by sentence, the book is just fabulous." --Ann Beattie "Nova executes like a chess master, all the while ratcheting up the tension and calling into question any sense of security, order, or reason. Like the best of noir, Nova's novels, serpentine in their structure, speed, and toxic bite, remind us that while dark forces are always present, we must embrace love." --Booklist "One of the country's most gifted novelists." --Chicago Tribune

Author Bio

Craig Nova is the award-winning author of twelve novels and one autobiography. His writing has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, and Men's Journal, among others. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of the Arts and Letters and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2005 he was named Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.