Nothing Can Make Me Do This

Can we ever truly know another person, however well-loved? Brainy, decent, funny, and likeable, the members of Horace Houseman’s family and his closest friend possess quirky and compelling interior lives that they reveal to no one else. Nothing Can Make Me Do This, David Huddle’s tenth work of fiction, enters the minds of Horace, Eve, Hannah, Clara, Bill, and others over fifty years, leaping in chronology an intersecting the vantage points, in a kaleidoscopic vision of a contemporary clan (and their secrets).

Currently Distinguished Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University in Virginia, David Huddle taught for thirty-eight years at the University of Vermont and continues to teach at the Bread Loaf School of English. He has published seventeen books of fiction, poetry, and essays. His novel The Story of a Million Years (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) was named a Distinguished Book of the Year by Esquire and a best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times Book Review. In 2012, Louisiana State University Press will publish his seventh poetry collection, Black Snake at the Family Reunion.