"Marlin Barton writes beautifully about the Southern family—the American family—a broken thing.
The lives of the parents bear down on the children and the children’s children in a way that makes you nod your head, yes, yes. You realize you know this family. You might even love them. Their story will definitely take hold of you and make you care.
  Just because a thing—a family—is broken all to hell doesn’t mean it’s ruined or destroyed. That’s the kick. That’s what Marlin Barton understands. A Broken Thing is a beautifully written, compelling story of a family that will not let go of you, even long after you close the book."
—Nanci Kincaid, author of Verbena

"A Broken Thing is an amazing crazy-quilt of a novel, told in multiple voices throughout a tumultuous two-year period of constant, relentless, Alabama-family dysfunction. These characters, Conrad, Laura, and Michael, deal with false biological fatherhood, misdiagnosed motherhood, questionable means-to-ends choices. In the end it is Seth, the youngest narrator, who proves to be the family's linchpin. Marlin Barton has written a novel about the heart, and both its hidden and well-known chambers."
—George Singleton, author of The Half-Mammals of Dixie