Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors, Version 2

An audacious literary experiment from the early twentieth century: twelve authors, each writing a single chapter, attempting to capture how one engagement and marriage reverberates through an entire family. The result is not one story but twelve, each author bringing their own voice, their own biases, their own wounds to the page. What begins as a seemingly simple courtship becomes a prism through which family secrets, rivalries, and resentments fracture into view. Some chapters pulse with warmth; others crack with satire or bitterness. The family that emerges is anything but monolithic, it's a collection of contradictory perspectives, each one claiming truth. This is a novel where the form IS the meaning. By letting twelve writers interpret the same family, the book argues silently: families are not single stories. They are competing narratives, unresolved tensions, love and resentment living under the same roof. For readers curious about early American experimental fiction, or anyone who has ever felt that their family defies simple description.