Galilee

Galilee, by Clive Barker, is a 1998 fantasy novel. I enjoyed this one, a sweeping narrative covering a broad scope of time and place.

from the back of the book:

Rich and powerful, the Geary dynasty has reigned over American society for decades. But it is a family with dark, terrible secrets. For the Gearys are a family at war. Their adversaries are the Barbarossas, a family whose timeless origins lie in myth,whose mystical influence is felt in intense, sensual exchanges of flesh and soul. Now their battle is about to escalate.

When Galilee, prodigal prince of the Barbarossa clan, meets Rachel, the young bride of the Geary's own scion Mitchell, they fall in love, consumed by a passion that unleashes long-simmering hatred. Old insanities arise, old adulteries are uncovered, and a seemingly invincible family will begin to wither, exposing its unholy roots...

favorite quotes:

How did we all end up bemoaning the fact of living, instead of finding purpose in the fact?

.......

Unpretentious would be a kind description of the town; banal perhaps truer. If it once had some particular kind of charm, that charm's gone, demolished to make room for the great American ubiquities: cheap hamburgers, cheap liquor places, a market for soda that impersonates more expensive soda and cheese that impersonates milk product. By night the gas station's the brightest spot in town.

Kirkus Reviews calls it "entertaining".

SF Site calls it "engrossing" and says,

The truth of Galilee has less to do with its characters or their adventures than with its recognition of the importance of the storyteller—his voice and his conscience—in the telling of tales. In this truth is a redemption both personal to Barker and paramount to readers of dark and fantastic fiction, who work their way, again and again, through stories without point or purpose until coming upon the likes of Galilee.