Shadow Family

Description

Shadow Family

a novel by Wayne Caldwell
ISBN: 978-1-963695-13-7 paperback $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-963695-14-4 ebook $9.99

6×9”, 354pp. March 18, 2025

 Shadow Family is the story of a birth mother, an adoptive mother, and their struggles with life’s pitfalls. Their son, after searching diligently for his birth mother, brings them together in the end. Told in these three voices, it is a story of perseverance and, ultimately, hope.

Praise for Shadow Family by Wayne Caldwell

Shadow Family invites readers to reflect on the boundaries of family, highlighting the differences between genetics and the environment in terms of what makes a good parent. It deals with themes of trauma and regret, showing how these things change people. Each character experiences pivotal moments that cause them to flip a switch, almost as if they die several times while dealing with the losses of relationships as the book moves forward. Each character voice is distinct, offering various lenses through which readers may view events. This book is deeply emotional, deeply real, and everyone is left to wonder how they would handle these situations and extend grace to the imperfect humans they find here.

—Mike Hilbig, author of Judgment Day and Other White Lies

Those of you fortunate enough to have read Wayne Caldwell’s blockbuster first novel, Cataloochee, will be excited to discover his newest work, Shadow Family, a story told in a polyphony of voices of parallel but connected families across generations. Wayne lets the characters speak for themselves, with intimacy and drama, on occasions of grief, and humor, loss and recovery of faith, and loyalty. This is a novel of kinship and love, in a rapidly changing world.

—Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek

Shadow Family is an engaging and quietly moving novel that touches on the most basic of human questions: birth and death, the nature of family, and how any of us know who we truly are. In particular, it portrays women after World War II struggling to create a life for themselves and their families in a world where their choices are often extremely limited. This is in every way a timely and important book.

—Terry Roberts, the author of The Sky Club and The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape

Wayne Caldwell is the author of two novels, Cataloochee (2007) and Requiem by Fire (2010; reissued 2020), and two volumes of poems, Woodsmoke (2021) and River Road (2024). He has won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award from the WNC Historical Association and the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.