Elizabeth A. Tucker’s The Pale Flesh of Wood is a beautifully tangled family saga rooted in grief, memory, and the slow bend of time. Set across multiple generations, the novel follows the Hawkins family through snapshots of their lives spanning from the 1930s to the 1980s. Centered around a California oak tree, literal and metaphorical, it’s a story about growing up under heavy legacies, about love that wounds and heals in equal measure, and about the things we inherit even when no one speaks them aloud.

The writing is lush and poetic without being precious. Tucker knows how to set a mood and trap you in it. Her dad’s joking charm cracks in places, revealing a man stitched together by war, trauma, and ego. This isn’t just a story about a family. It’s about what’s left unsaid between parents and kids and how silence grows teeth.

The structure threw me at first, it jumps through decades and voices, but once I leaned into it, I was hooked. I liked that Tucker didn’t feel the need to hold my hand. In Chapter Two, young Charles, Lyla’s father as a boy, lies under that same tree, imagining himself fossilized after being slapped by his own mother. He watches a roly-poly bug curl up tight and wishes he could do the same. That image wrecked me. It’s a subtle but gutting way to show how generational pain rolls downhill, gaining speed like that tire Lyla’s dad sends her down in later chapters. And when she crashes, he just lights a cigarette and says, “Whoopsie poopsie.” I wanted to throw the book across the room.

Still, what surprised me most was how much tenderness lives in these characters. Even the broken ones. Especially the broken ones. Pops, the quiet grandfather, reads baseball stats to baby Daniel. Lyla’s grandmother, fierce and frigid at first, softens in fragments. And Lyla herself, oh man, I rooted for that girl with everything I had.

I’d recommend this book to readers who loved The Sound and the Fury or Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, folks who appreciate moody, intimate stories that don’t rush their reveals. It’s not a quick read. It’s not meant to be. This is a sit-on-the-porch-and-let-it-sink-in kind of novel. One that lingers. One that matters.

Pages: 320 | ASIN : B0D6V72BL7