A Thousand Acres and Empire Falls meet during the present hydrofracking controversy as a beleaguered patriarch must decide the fate of his land and children in this enveloping family drama

The Joyner family sits atop prime Marcellus Shale. When landmen for the natural gas companies begin to lease property all around the family's hundred acres, the Joyners start to take notice. Undecided on whether or not to lease the family land, Frank Joyner must weigh his heirs' competing motivations. All of this culminates as a looming history of family tragedy resurfaces.

A sprawling family novel, Fractures follows each Joyner as the controversial hydrofracking issue slowly exacerbates underlying passions and demons. With echoes of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, Fractures takes its reader deep into the beating heart and hearth of a family divided

"Lamar Herrin's Fractures is a brilliantly conceived and executed novel that illustrates how coping with familial dysfunctions can help us understand and deal with the more deadly dysfunctions of society. Here's one of my favorite writers at his finest." —Ron Hansen, author of The Assassination of Jesse James

LAMAR HERRIN's short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Epoch, and The Paris Review, which awarded him its Aga Kahn fiction prize. He is professor emeritus of creative writing and contemporary literature at Cornell University and has taught many bestselling authors such as Philip Gourevitch, Philipp Meyer, and Melissa Bank. Together with his wife, Amparo, he splits his time between Ithaca, New York and Valencia, Spain.