Rose is still young and darkly pretty, her body not yet settled into the shapeless lumpiness caused by too many babies and too much backbreaking farm work. Her children, her kitchen and her garden make up her world in rural wartime Ontario. It is an existence defined by immigrant poverty and a loveless marriage to Jacob, a man whose own existence is crippled by disappointment and self-loathing. Then passion and hope burst into Rose’s life in the handsome countenance of Bobby, Rose and Jacob’s landlord, a black man whose grandparents fled to Canada through the Underground Railroad. Rose and Bobby’s friendship grows into a dangerous love affair, where unpaid back rent is forgiven and an uneasy triangle begins to form amongst the three. But now Rose is pregnant, and caught in a terrible suspension of indecision. Jacob will never give up his children to her, but Bobby is her only salvation for love and happiness.

A remarkable, deeply satisfying novel of three people caught between Rose’s own search for love and her unyielding devotion to her children, Flesh and Blood is a sensual exploration of love and desire set against the harsh immigrant experience of a post-Depression countryside. Full of the rich domestic details that propel Rose, Bobby and Jacob along the path of their hardscrabble lives, this is a story that builds to a surprisingly honest -- and ultimately hopeful -- conclusion.

Kenneth Radu is a seasoned, award-winning writer of novels, short stories, non-fiction, and poetry. His first novel, Distant Relations, received the Quebec Writers' Federation Award for Best English-language Fiction. A collection of stories, A Private Performance, was also honoured with the award. A previous collection, The Cost of Living, was nominated for the Governor General's Award. His most recent work includes two collections of stories, Sex in Russia, and Earthbound, both published by DC Books, as well as the novel Butterfly in Amber.

Kenneth Radu's profile page