Very Old Bones

It is 1958 and the Phelan clan has gathered to hear Peter Phelan's will. Peter was an artist whose paintings about members of the family have given him belated critical recognition. The paintings illuminate the lives of his brother Francis (the exiled hero of Ironweed), and a family ancestor, Malachi McIlhenny, a true madman beset by demons, and determined to send them back to hell.

Orson Purcell, bastard son of Peter, encounters his first true solace through this obsessive and close-knit family he has never quite entered. It is through Orson's modern eye that we see the tragedies, obsessions, and clandestine joys of the singular Phelan family.