“The rooftop was where my father was the most comfortable, where he could be tall and survey life among the quiet chimneys, the broken shingles, the weathered skin of protection between families and the sky.”

Between Families and the Sky is a two-part novel about love in all its mysterious forms. “The Hole in the Kitchen Floor” tells the story of James Kinnell’s teenage years — his grandfather’s permanent visit, his mother’s new romance after his father’s death, and especially his kaleidoscopic feelings for his friend Mirele. In “The Memory Holes of Garland Rose,” a young architect replays scenes from a childhood shaped by the death of her mother, her father’s fixation on golf, and the sexual heat between her father and her teacher.

As Alan Cumyn draws these searchers together, he creates extended families of complex, loving and eccentric people whose lives dovetail into a rich and satisfying resolution.

“Between Families and the Sky […] is a captivating novel, the work of an insidiously good writer, one who seems to pull finely pitched sentences from clear air. […] It would be a failure to not treasure, praise, this book.&#34
– Chronicle-Herald

“He writes with such compassion, clarity, and humour that it is impossible not to become engrossed in the lives of his people. Cumyn is a consummate craftsman who has built a home you’ll move right into and leave only reluctantly.”
– Fiddlehead