The Story of a Million Years

In his first novel, David Huddle tells a delicately nuanced story of relationships between men and women that is as old as human history itself. It begins with a startling secret affair between fifteen-year-old Marcy and the husband of her mother's best friend. Years later, the emotional fallout from the affair still echoes in unexpected ways through the lives of the people closest to Marcy: her husband and the couple who have remained their friends since high school. A multilayered tale unfolds through their eyes, in which each character seeks to recapture a kernel of long-forgotten goodness. In the tradition of John Updike and John Cheever, Huddle renders these complex relationships with clarity and depth. "For grownups with brains," said Richard Bausch of Huddle's earlier work. The same is true of The Story of a Million Years, a novel written with poetry, wisdom, and a masterly sense of humanity.