Family Ashes

About the Book

He expected just another bike ride down the rocky trail.  What he got was a mountain cave haunted by hogmen determined to stir nightmares from his past.

Set against the backdrops of Colorado's front range and the Lake Michigan coast, this gripping mainstream/contemporary novel follows a transforming week in the life of a man of action who finds himself locked in battles from which there are no escapes.  

Jade Vanderspyke, a successful bookstore manager, flounders in a whirlpool of confusion and shame.  His obsession with an attractive employee exhausts him, and his craving for career advancement threatens his relationships with his wife and two teens.  Finally jolted by his father's suicide and the arrival of those cremated remains, Jade is forced to look for answers within.  

Guided by a remarkable "hogman" mentor in a mysterious cave, Jade faces his obsessions and the inner voices silenced from his youth.  With the support of a small group of new friends, he attempts the painful work it will take to salvage his family, his self respect, and his faith.

Much in the spirit of Promise Keepers, the mythopoetic men's movement and the Million Man March, Family Ashes candidly addresses down-to-earth issues, male impulses and sexual tensions in a perceptive psycho-spiritual inner journey that will fascinate men and women alike.

About the Author

Dave Cheadle has published short stories, poetry, three books and over 150 articles. He is a high school teacher and magazine editor with graduate training in English, History, and Theology. In 1986 he moved from Michigan to Colorado, where he lives with his wife, Audrey, and children, Erica and Evan.