Body and Bread

by Nan Cuba

One of "Ten Titles to Pick Up Now"--O Magazine.

"In Body and Bread, Nan Cuba goes straight to the heart of love and death and families and religion and the land."—Grace Dane Mazur, author of Silk: Stories and Trespass: a novel

Years after her brother Sam's suicide, Sarah Pelton remains unable to fully occupy her world without him in it. Now, while her surviving brothers prepare to sell the family's tenant farm and a young woman's life hangs in the balance, Sarah is forced to confront the life Sam lived and the secrets he left behind. As she assembles the artifacts of her family's history in east Texas in the hope of discovering her own future, images from her work as an anthropologist—images of sacrifice, ritual, and death—haunt her waking dreams.

In this moving debut novel, Nan Cuba unearths the power of family legacies and the indelible imprint of loss on all our lives.

Nan Cuba is the founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink, a nonprofit literary center, and is currently an assistant professor of English at Our Lady of the Lake University. As an investigative journalist, she reported on the causes of extraordinary violence in publications such as Life and D Magazine. Her stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in Quarterly West, Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Prose, The Bloomsbury Review, and the Harvard Review, among others. She is co-editor of Art at Our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers & Artists (Trinity University Press, 2008).

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2013

About the author

Nan Cuba is the author of Body and Bread (Engine Books, 2013), which won the PEN Southwest Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award, was one of "Ten Titles To Pick UP Now" in O, Oprah's Magazine, and listed in "Summer Books" by Huffington Post. She co-edited Art at Our Doorstep: San Antonio Writers and Artists (Trinity University Press, 2008)and has published stories, essays, and reviews in Quarterly West, Columbia, Harvard Review, Antioch Review, storySouth, and Connotation Press. As an investigative journalist, she reported on the causes of extraordinary violence in Life and D magazines. She is the founder and executive director emeritus of Gemini Ink (www.geminiink.org), a nonprofit literary center in San Antonio, and the writer-in-residence at Our Lady of the Lake University.

Reviews

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is beautifully written. I finished it and then started back at the beginning to skim through it again, because I felt reluctant to move on.

[Marian Szczepanski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like an archaeologist meticulously excavating a dig of great consequence, Nan Cuba reveals, layer by layer, the complex history of three linked families, their alliances and mesalliances, and the secrets that threaten to tear the surviving members apart. The author's keen eye, like that of a seasoned natural scientist, misses nothing--from the exquisite details of the natural world to the precisely choreographed ambulation of a paraplegic. I was especially captivated by the narrator, a distinguished professor, who, despite her academic achievements, lives a solitary, even hermetic existence. Dr. Sarah Pelton does not present as a warm and fuzzy character--stand-offish, self-absorbed, determinedly ensconced in her ivory tower--but unresolved grief around the suicide of her cherished older brother reveals the all-too-human self masked by her absorption in scholarship. Pelton's nuanced flashbacks to childhood reveal a very different Sarah: at once the bright daughter of parents preaching tradition and respectability and the impressionable sister who idolizes her maverick, self-destructive brother, ever urging her to embrace the unfamiliar and chart her own course. Part coming-of-age story, part spiritual journey, Body and Bread is an intelligent, compassionate narrative that deftly navigates the vital realms of myth and memory, death and rebirth.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A TOP SHELF review, originally published in the October 24, 2013 edition of The Monitor

Earlier this year, independent press Engine Books released the first novel by editor, journalist and professor Nan Cuba. Twenty years in the making, Body and Bread has attracted considerable positive response, being featured on both O Magazine’s “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” and Huffington Post’s “Summer Books: 15 New Releases to Put on Your Reading List.”

The story centers on Sarah Pelton: an unmarried, middle-aged anthropologist whose estrangement from her family is brought to a forcible end when the widow of her long-dead and much beloved brother Sam announces that her daughter will die unless she gets a very expensive surgery.

The family is drawn into ugly legal wrangling over wills and the sale of inherited property, and Sarah finds herself forced to confront the past and present in ways she has studiously avoided for close to two decades. As she turns the craft of her profession on her own life — sifting through layers to unearth the secrets, lies, moldy fragments of relationships — she discovers a path back to others, into the future, by letting go of guilt and learning to live with unanswerable questions.

Cuba expertly interweaves the story of Sarah’s childhood and adolescence in central Texas during the ’50s and ’60s with events in the novel’s present. As we slowly uncover the origins of Sarah’s withdrawn, esoteric existence, we also witness her reconnection to family. The pivot is Sam, an amazingly complex character whose refusal to conform to his family’s traditional notions of propriety and meaning inspire Sarah’s own life choices, including dedicating herself to the study of the Nahua tribes, collectively referred to as Aztecs.

The author makes startling use of Sarah’s obsession with Aztec philosophy and culture, which in the present often take the form of waking fugues in which the anthropologist is “transported” to ritual moments of Mesoamerican past. The importance of sacrifice for the Aztecs, the valued place death held in their dual concept of the universe — a balance of destruction and creation — become ideological lenses through which Sarah comes to grip with her loss.

Beautifully written, hauntingly true, expertly spanning multiple cultures, time periods and philosophies, Body and Bread is nothing short of a tour-de-force. Read it. You will be transported. You will be transformed.

[Stephanie Schoellman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transubstantiation....taking something broken and transforming it.....a prequel to destruction with the hope of resurrection....an ambivalent sacrifice and blessing.... This dual theme is intertwined throughout Body and Bread as Sarah grieves for the loss of her brother and discovers the connectivity between the past, present, herself, and others. It's an honest and insightful read, grappling with the complex nature of identity through sensory details, setting, and Sarah's first person metaphysical perspective. The reader realizes along with Sarah that we never stop coming-of-age.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A multilayered family drama that uses memory and spirituality to tell a well-crafted story about the events surrounding a brother's suicide. Cuba is a subtle writer and her use of Aztec cosmology works seamlessly to get into the head of her protagonist. This is a thoughtful novel that will touch both head and heart.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tightly told story that doesn't pander. Cuba doesn't spell everything out for the reader--it's the delicate connections she makes that allows the reader to draw her own conclusions about the cause and effect of various plot points, including upbringing and parental expectations; religion; sibling dynamics and birth order; people's urge or ability to choose their own family; and the need to be free to express your own identity and make your own choices.

This book lacks the plodding predictability found in less deftly woven stories. Its quiet suspense isn't necessary to keep the pages turning, but it helps. While the framing in which a death occurs close to the protagonist whose reason is not revealed until the end is a common technique, Cuba expertly wields it without making it feel trite or overdone. Between the question of Sam's suicide and its answer lies a complex past and present in which we see Sarah, who is striving to find herself in the world, do so. By the end, Sarah has fulfilled her promise to her brother.

And though Sarah's promise is fulfilled, she doesn't seem particularly happy about it. An outsider to her family, having followed her own path, she nevertheless seems disillusioned with the world. She needs more to close the circle of life and death. Cuba gives her a way to live out both her brother's mantra and act in his place to fulfill her father's wish, to do the right thing.

[Suzann Madeley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nan paints pictures with her words. Now, that’s what an author’s supposed to do, I know, but there are few who can actually achieve this so beautifully. For those of us who grew up in small towns during the ‘50s and ‘60s, her scenes are particularly reminiscent of a time long ago, but she takes us back to that time and that place so effortlessly that we are unaware of the trip we’re taking. The first line of her book will no doubt grab your attention; particularly, if you, like the author and like me, have been touched so deeply and forever changed by such a tragic life event. But this book is not a tragedy – it is affirmation that, although our life will never be the same, we will grow and learn and perhaps change others’ lives for the better.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my Temple, Texas friends, the author is a member of the Brindley family, and the town in which the novel is set is loosely based on Temple. There are also some similarities in the characters and the author's family, although when I saw her speak here at the library recently, she went to great pains to say that the family in the book is NOT her family.

The book tells the story of a college professor whose life has been forever scarred by the suicide of her brother. It flashes back and forth between their childhood and the present, along with her own hallucinations based apparently on her studies of the Meso-American people. Although occasionally hard to follow, it is beautifully written.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty complex story. On the surface, it is a story about a woman investigating the life of her dead brother while she and her brothers attempt to sell off their parent's property. But the book also discusses theology, Native American culture and history, Texas history, anthropology, identity, family secrets, and coming of age in a small town. For the most part, I was rarely bored and remained pretty fascinated by Sarah's family. But there are parts where the story just gets weird and the talk about ethnography and anthropology is just a little too much. Even so, it was a captivating story about what it means to be a family.

[Gina Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has soul and intrigue. I didn't love the protagonist, but I understood her and how her world view formed from her complicated family and what she knew and did not know about them. I am not going to be a spoiler, but there are secrets that, when uncovered, twist your understanding--both clarify and confound. I am almost compelled to read it again...now that I know!

The author leaves you with questions for you to resolve for yourself, which is what makes this book the perfect book club choice.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

The missing star is likely more something missing in myself than in this book. It takes all kinds of grit to follow Cuba through this journey, and it left me feeling pretty low, but it is doubtless a beautiful and significant novel. When I get too mired in the emotionally and spiritually trying aspects, I remember all the fascinating evidence of diligent historical research, and I'm tempted to try it again one day. Put your big girl pants on if you decide to wade in here.

[Myfanwy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was completely transported as I read Nan Cuba's lovely novel, Body and Bread, on the beach today. I entered the lives of the Pelton family and found that the secrets eventually revealed left as profound a mark on me as they did on this family. It's a beautiful debut. Read it.

[Tony Burnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful prose. Characters are intense and well developed as is expected in a literary family saga. The plot is a bit disjointed, probably because the author originally intended it as a linked short story collection. Overall satisfying though,

[Patti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not one of the 10 Titles to pick up now. Not good. Heartbreakingly not good.

[Laural · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifully written, compelling story.

[J.D. Spero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is poetry. Clear your mind and open your heart before reading. It will change you. My only wish is that I had more people with whom to discuss the controversial questions it raises.

[Terri · Rating 2 out of 5]

GOOdness I did not like this book. If I were better at "quitting" a book I would not have finished it. Too much confusingly strange symbolism for me.

[Genanne Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful insights about the lifelong impact of family secrets and a shattering family tragedy. Lovely writing with arresting imagery and great attention to Sarah Pelton’s inner world.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Body and Bread
Love this novel !!! Pass present loss. I highly
Recommend for anyone.

[Mary Havens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was definitely in a category of it's own. Also: I was forced to read it on my phone which I did not care for. But it was free that way so huzzah!
I think it's very well-written and I loved all the Texas nods - Mustang grapes, certain places (even Taylor gets a nod!), the heavy Czech influence, etc.
I don't know why the author chose such a focus on indigenous Latin American culture and anthropology in general. At the end, she stated it took 20 years to write. I get this work being like a hobbyist sort of project but I was baffled at the constant indigenous Latin American nods and the lack of definition of the words used. I guess that was part of Sarah's character and her hallucinations?
The big secret at the end was a whole lot of "what?" One reviewer said she finished the book and skimmed over it again to pick up the nuance but I was just ready to be done.
It's a fast read, it's lovingly set in Central Texas, and it makes as much as sense as it doesn't make any sense at all. It's like magical realism without the magic, just scholarly hallucinations instead.
I liked it and I'll be thinking about it for awhile but I definitely need some fun before I move on.

[Cheryl Walsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

To her credit, when Nan Cuba makes her intelligent characters do stupid things, she does it in a way that makes it believable. Her psychological insight is astute. However, this story still didn't work for me, and there was a lot of unearned suspense--delay in revealing details that made for awkward pacing, both of scenes and of narrative arcs, and that I found frustrating rather than compelling. If not for a sleepless night, I probably would have put the book down rather than finish it. Still, the characters live on in my imagination, and I do feel for them, and that is an achievement in itself.

[tx · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't get into it. Gave it away.

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Pelton as narrator of "Body and Bread" takes us through her life both in present time and through the past as she is faced with her brother's suicide once again when his ex-wife asks to receive part of a land settlement from the family's estate promised by her former husband.

Rich in written texture and so heartbreaking at times, "Body and Bread" is surely a novel that will make you ponder questions about your own life, your own beliefs, and what one would do when faced with difficult decisions and the decisions of others that affect our lives.

A feel of the supernatural, but wholly human, this is a book that will keep you wondering still about the lives of these characters and our own once it's over.

[Pmcdnld2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarah, now in her 50's, has never recovered from her brother's suicide years before. As she and her brothers prepare to sell the family farm, much dissension and disclosure. The book switches between the present and their growing up years, sometimes confusingly. Good story.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

**Goodreads First Reads book**

I am not entirely sure what to think of Body & Bread. I don't really have any feelings about it, good or bad. It is just there. I read it over the course of a week, which is a fairly long time for me to be reading something.

[Catherine Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked that the book circled around the main event that took place, and the depth of family relationships the author explored. Some of the characters were not brought up many times and it was slightly difficult to keep them straight. It was a little odd, but did not take too long to read.

[Carla Lovell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite but it had promising moments.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed parts of this book, but other parts felt disjointed and incoherent. And there is no much needed resolution.