Freddie Mason's Wake

What do you do when your best friend's son has died and your husband has forbidden you and your teenage sons to attend the wake--the wake that turns out to be the climax of a two-year vendetta between the fathers and the total separation of the two families?

Freddie Mason's Wake is about these two families-the Masons and the Carusos. Freddie Mason is a twenty-something problem child who passes away from a drug-related blood infection and whose wake is about to occur. The two-year vendetta between the families was caused by Mr. Caruso catching his teenage son Philip in bed with Laura Mason, the "little whore," as he puts it. This led to a clash between the two fathers and the separation of the two families, whose mothers had been best of friends and whose children had also been close. The novel centers on the preparations for Freddie Mason's wake and Mrs. Caruso's insistence that she and her boys need to "show our faces" and attend the wake, which would be the first time the families have been together since the clash two years ago. The novel covers the events leading up to, during, and after the wake, which turns out to be quite a memorable event for several of the participants.